


Catch and Release

by DaneCross



Category: Dark Matter (TV)
Genre: F/M, Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-08
Updated: 2016-07-12
Packaged: 2018-07-13 02:07:28
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 15
Words: 35,299
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7134233
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DaneCross/pseuds/DaneCross
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Season one finale possible direction. The Crew of the Raza is in the hands of the Galactic Authority and ONE get's a surprise visit from his past. FIVE would have warned him that being rich and powerful could turn out to be a nightmare if he still had his memories.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

Series Synopsis: A group of six people with no memory of who they are awaken from stasis on a derelict spaceship in the farthest reaches of space. Their memories wiped clean, they name themselves "ONE" through "SIX" in the order of their awakening. They have no recollection of who they are or how they got on board. The only clue to their identities is a cargo bay full of weaponry and a destination: a remote mining colony that is about to become a war zone. With no idea whose side they are on, they only have each other to rely on as they try to figure out the mystery before their pasts catch up with them.

ONE / Jace Corso / Derrick Moss  
TWO / Rebecca / Portia Lin  
THREE / Marcus Boone  
FOUR/ Ryo Tetsuda  
FIVE / Das  
SIX / Griffin Jones

 

*SNAP*  
ONE jerked into awareness. Everything hurt; the edges of the floor grating, the restraints cutting his wrists, the air sawing in and out of his chest, the light burning thru the membrane of his eyelids; searing the pain receptors of his brain… He rolled away from the overhead lighting and did his best to bite back the involuntary groan that accompanied the effort. He made a mental note to find out what chemical agent they had been gassed with and avoid it with prejudice in the future.

“Rise and shine, pretty boy,” THREE called sarcastically to him. “Guess this is where you finally step off.”

ONE squinted in THREE’s direction but couldn’t make any more sense of the remark than he could make of the blurred form his eyes refused to bring into focus. No great loss he tried to comfort himself.

“Easy, just breathe. It gets better.”

One swung his head towards TWO’s velvety voice, but she wasn’t comforting him. He could just make out her shape bent over the smaller technicolored blur that he guessed was the kid, FIVE. 

“Are we still all trying to kill each other?” ONE wondered aloud, his voice more of a pained croak than anything else. No one answered, but the fact that he no longer had a gun barrel aimed at the back of his head seemed promising. “Did we find the traitor?” He asked struggling with bound wrists to get to a sitting position.

The precision of approaching military boots was his only answer.

Galactic Authority Captain Jesse Monroe scowled at the collection of society’s most famous undesirables occupying containment cell C 05. The crew of the Raza - an impressive catch, a total bounty payout accompanied by five zeros but the real money was playing the corporate catch and release protocol and it hadn’t cost him any men or fire power. He should have been thrilled, mentally projecting the bonus that would hit this month’s pay. But he couldn’t smother his revulsion for the huge dark presence of Griffin Jones who stood at his back. Goose bumps skittered up the nape of his neck into his closely cropped hair and the muscles in his back knotted with unease. His kept his hand casually curled around the gun holstered at his waist. He wasn’t taking any chances that the situation couldn’t still go south.

“Well, I guess there really ain’t no loyalty among thieves.” THREE drawled from the wrong side of the cell’s containment field.

TWO crouched protectively over FIVE. Her dark eyes promised pain and retribution but inside she seethed at herself. Not once had she doubted Griffin/SIX and she took the failure personally.

SIX ignored the comment and addressed the captain with his deep voice, “The girl is just a stowaway. She’s not involved with them and if you do a DNA scan on Jace Corso you’ll find he is actually Derrick Moss.”

Captain Monroe frowned like something unclean had dragged itself out of it’s designated containment receptacle. Great he thought, an innocent witness, and a corporate celebrity, the situation was increasing in complication. A private stepped forward holding out a data pad. “Sir, the terms are official. The final order just came down.” The captain nodded and took the data pad without taking his eyes off Griffin. He punched in acknowledgement then handed it back. “Get this P.O.S. off my boat,” he growled indicating Griffin with a nod of his head.

“Excuse me?” Griffin said taking offense. It wasn’t like this had been an easy choice. He was giving up everything, everyone he knew, his current means of sustaining life. He expected civility and professionalism at the minimum. A little gratefulness might not be out of line considering he had pulled it off without anyone getting killed. Taking the Raza out meant protecting the greater good and someone had to take responsibility for that planet they had unwittingly had a hand in blowing up; the 15,000 lives that had been lost.

Captain Monroe rounded on Griffin. “You may have managed to cut yourself a deal, so I can’t touch you. But don’t for a second think you and I are comrades. I had a sister on Hyadum-12. Now get off my boat before I defy orders and send you to hell.”

Griffin swallowed, struggling to hold back his physical response to the Captain. It’s all worth it as long as the crew of the Raza doesn’t become victim to his deadly guilt, he reminded himself. He may not like that his only memory of his past was losing it after Hyadum-12 and gunning down his team, but if that gave him the control to prevent it from happening again to these people that he cared about… He glanced quickly at their audience, unwilling to meet any of the Raza crew member’s eyes. With a tight nod, he turned and followed his armed escorts out of the cell block. He didn’t like leaving his friends behind. Seeing FIVE in restraining cuffs destroyed him. But he would have to deal with all that later. At least they were safe from him.

Captain Monroe turned back to study his prisoners. He didn’t care for the deadly glare the Raza’s Captain had leveled at him. He glared back. “Look, your rep has been contacted. Let’s just all play by the rules so we can go home paid.” He turned to his second in command. “Take those two to the infirmary,” he ordered, pointing at ONE and FOUR. “Do a DNA scan on Corso and get Ryo back on his feet before they meet with Calchek.” Then Captain Monroe stepped back to monitor his orders being executed. He pulled the data pad back from his supporting NCO and issued a lock down command to eliminate the gossip during ship personnel’s free time. This was all too high profile to trust that it would happen smoothly. CYA was going to be the imperative for the next 48 hours.

VVVVV

The medical officer brought the results of the DNA scan up on the main monitor. ONE was relieved that he could actually bring the readout into focus. His eyes watered, huge embarrassing tears lining his face, trying to clear the last remnants of the gas chemical contaminants. He lay back against the medical table, his bound wrists making it impossible to lie flat. The table’s soft thrum was oddly comforting. 

“Derrick Moss?” Captain Monroe said with disbelief. “How does Derrick Moss end up looking like Corso?” The Captain grabbed ONE by the jaw to study his face. The medical officer answered without looking away from her tech. “Slight body modification to lose the height, bone refinement… Wow, looks like maybe some cellular pigment modification and g-nome reprogramming. This is seriously expensive, experimental stuff.” At this point she looked up from her screen to study the results. 

ONE shifted uncomfortable under the scrutiny. He felt like a specimen pinned against a collector’s display board. 

Captain Monroe huffed. “You have anything to add?” He asked stepping back, leaving red imprints on ONE’s jaw from the strength of his grip. ONE hesitated, unsure if the question was directed at him. The Captain, his entourage of soldiers and the medical officer stared expectantly, waiting for the medical curiosity to perform a trick. 

Uh, ok. It looked like the question was for him. Might as well take advantage of the opportunity he reasoned. He glanced at FOUR’s comatose form on a med table across the room. The shimmer of a containment field separated them. “What is going to happen to the crew of the Raza now?” ONE asked.

The captain laughed and relaxed his stance. “Guess that confirms it. There aren’t many liberal do-gooders except Moss that would ask a question like that in your circumstances.” The captain waved over his NCO. “Take a data film of his DNA scan to the admiral. This just jumped my pay grade.” 

“What about that one?” The captain asked the medical technician gesturing towards FOUR. She frowned. “He hasn’t responded to the antidote. Are you certain it was Trychorm-Alyte 386 that was administered?” The Captain shook his head no. “Better do a full work up to identify the issue. They will just have to start the negotiations without him.” He engaged the containment field sealing ONE into a med unit. “Alert me when Ryo is up and keep Moss separated. I don’t want to hear that the Medical Bay has turned into a damn pay per view event, so keep a lid on Moss’s identity.” 

VVVV

Calchek swore a blue streak into the com link connected to his IT guru.  
“The screen is mother F*-ing out, sh@! for brains. How do you a$$ hats expect to rape me with your next pork barrel bill when you can’t figure out where to put your d!ck long enough to…”  
“What the hell do I care who the Nexus link went down on… “  
“Just get me to my mother F*-ing meeting so I can quit jagging off to…”  
The wall screen in cell C 05 snapped to life. Five stood to the side, out of the com link’s camera eye while TWO and THREE watched. THREE couldn’t help the amused snicker that alerted Calchek that he had an audience. TWO Glared at him, but he just shrugged it off. He didn’t figure her foul mood had much to do with him, it was more about their accommodations.

“Crap! This went live you puissant. Learn a language and F*-ing use it.” Calcheck pulled the com unit from his ear and rapped it against his desk a few times in retribution before returning it to it’s position. “Hey guys!” He greeted pasting on a wide sh!t eating grin. “You got big balls, like Nova star sized balls. Everyone’s very impressed. We’re going to be drafting off this one for years. But I gotta say we coulda gotten another 10 to 15% if you had looped me in earlier. Are you still sore about how the Meikke snatch and grab went?”

“Cut to the chase.” TWO growled. THREE glanced at her. Damn, but she was hot when she was in a “take no prisoners” mode.

“Oh, Uh –K,” Calcheck said holding up a finger and dragging a data pad closer for reference. “The Raza’s a hot commodity again. I’ve got an offer on the table from Ferrous Corp., PrimaTech, Tyrell Corporation… All the big boys want to play. Even Intercolactic gave this a sniff and they haven’t played in this space for almost 15 years.”


	2. Chapter 2

TWO was starting to piece together the situation. Corporations always had trash they needed someone else to deal with. The local law had more to gain from a law and order angle by directing criminal activity for corporate needs than incarceration. Bag them, tag them and then send them out on a corporate gig for a substantial profit. This was typically how up and comers got their first corporate black job. The local Galactic Authority catch them terrorizing innocents and broker their first deal with a corp for 20% over set bail. It’s the underworld’s idea of an unpaid internship to see how good you are; a means to get the corporate connections and the attention of a broker. What still wasn’t making sense was that everyone kept thinking this was a brilliant move rather than a step backward for the type of talent that the Raza was famous for. “What are the jobs?” TWO asked.

Calcheck sputtered, “What, you don’t… That’s not how catch and release works.”

“We are a known skillset. There’s no risk making a bid on us. This is different than your typical catch and release.” TWO insisted.

“Ok, so this really is about unloading Moss?” Calcheck shaking his finger in the air like he knew it all along, “I get it. F*-ing brilliant,” he added scratching his nose. “But these GA military types are sticklers about process. You are going to have to take one of these offers for them to release the ship and the crew. Give me 20 and I’ll get back to you with some deets.” 

The screen went dark and FIVE crept forward, “What did he mean when he said this was about unloading Moss? Are you trying to get rid of ONE?” She asked her eyes suddenly wide with disbelief.

“ALWAYS” - “NO” THREE and TWO answered simultaneously. THREE turned to TWO, “Aw, come on,” I thought we were finally agreed on this when you put the gun to his head.”

TWO stepped into his face and put her hands on her hips in challenge. Calcheck wasn’t worth much but she did appreciate having the wrist restraints removed; being able to move freely made thinking about a next move much easier. “Tensions were high,” She shot back, “I was making sure nobody did something they would regret.”

“What, like turn our sorry asses into the Galactic Authority? Nice going stopping that from happening.” THREE countered.

“More like ONE blowing your head off.” TWO growled grabbing the front of his vest and shoving him back against the wall. For a moment, charged violence laced the air and FIVE held her breath. 

Then THREE relaxed with a sly grin. “How am I supposed to fight with you when you finally came to your senses and chose me over pretty boy?” 

TWO shoved him again before stepping back. “That’s not what happened.” 

THREE smiled wider, “Definitely happened.” 

FIVE wrapped her arms tightly around her waist. She wanted to be strong, but her young face plainly displayed her fear, “What happens now?”

THREE shrugged, “The band is breaking up kid. ONE will stop slumming it and go back to where he belongs. SIX - we hunt down and repay the favor,” he said with determination.

“No.” TWO countered. “I’m the captain, no one leave’s without my say so.”

 

VVVVV

The magnetic docking clamps of the Zorgon, a mid class recon ship of the Galactic Alliance thumped heavily, signaling completion and the airlock cycled open. Dr. David Hemb stood and offered his arm to the refined beauty seated in the pilot’s chair. Catherine Moss smiled up at him intimately. “Are you ready for this, che`?” David asked. 

“Yes,” she replied with a determined shake of her head. A dark curl escaped her intricately braided up do to rest against the porcelain of her cheek. She gathered up her brief case and accepted the strength of his offered arm. “I’ve been working a life time for this. Let’s not keep Derrick waiting.”

Captain Monroe, his NCO and a security detail of 4 greeted them. “Catherine Moss?” he asked in verification. “I’m sorry, but I’m going to need verification.” His NCO stepped forward with a retinal imprint scanner. After ID ing Mrs. Moss and Dr Hemb, Catherine reached into her brief case and produced her marriage certificate. Captain Monroe nodded and led them toward the Medical bays.

VVVV

ONE clenched his jaw and did his best to ignore the latest comments of the long parade of sightseers. He lay on his side showing his back to them, feeling like a damn zoo animal. No wonder those animals are always hiding when the crowds of people show up during visiting hours. He blinked, suddenly unsure if he knew that from first hand knowledge growing up a privileged kid or from streaming holocasts. 

“Are you sure that’s him? It doesn’t look like him…”

“I thought he was going to be taller.”

“…too pretty, I thought he looked better before…”

“Wouldn’t kick him outta bed just because he looks more boy than man…” 

The small group was ushered out to make room for another wave of visitors. It was the whisper soft sound of the containment field deactivating that caught his attention. ONE glanced over his shoulder to see Captain Monroe standing beside a well dressed couple, each clutching brief cases. They still hadn’t bothered releasing him from the wrist restraints, but he stood and turned to face them. No one spoke. They seemed to be waiting for something from him.

After several minutes, the woman stepped forward. She was regal, tall with high cheek bones, a crown of glossy dark hair and pale blue eyes. “Derrick?” she asked. Her voice was lilting with rounded vowels. The readouts of the medical bay silently registered ONE’s unease. The man was tall, well built and extremely precise with his hands. “Catherine?” he purred, watching her more than ONE. She ignored him and stepped forward, a crease marred her brow as she studied ONE’s features, “Derrick?” 

ONE shifted. “Yeah, I guess,” he said softly. Nothing about this felt good, but he didn’t have any reasons to base his feelings. Catherine? It was too much of a coincidence, but the only Catherine he knew of was his murdered wife. It couldn’t be her, right? … Right? His thoughts went to TWO. If he had a wife what did that mean for his relationship with TWO? Of course, after the last 42 hours of mistrust and looking for a traitor on the Raza his relationship with TWO wasn’t exactly solid. 

All emotion dropped from Catherine’s face and her eyes went flat as she turned on Captain Monroe. “How dare you waste my time,” She hissed. “This is not my husband.” 

Dr. Hemb picked up the data film of the DNA Sequence; ignored until that point. It was the same that he had verified when the GA had approached them with the news that Derrick Moss was in their custody. He topped ONE by several inches forcing ONE to look up at him. It was creepy as hell having a stranger invade ONE’s personal space… to study his minute details. The Dr’s cologne re-aggravated his eyes forcing him to blink back the waterworks. The feel of the doctor’s hot breath against the back of his neck was finally too much. “Back off,” ONE growled, hitching his shoulder and turning with a glare. Dr Hemb wrapped his cool fingers around ONE’s neck and forced his head back to better catch the light. “Tsk. Tsk. So lovely.” ONE tried to shake him off, but the Doctor’s other hand grabbed the back of his head and forced him back against the Med table. “Hmm, you are stronger than you look, Eh?” the doctor’s deep voice reverberated softly in ONE’s ear. With an affectionate slap to ONE’s cheek, Dr Hemb let go and rejoined Catherine and Captain Monroe with a wide smile. 

“He is not a copy,” Dr Hemb announced. “Whoever did the physical alterations was masterful. Ah… the pain such procedures would inflict, you must marvel at the mental state of an individual willing to undergo such punishment. Perhaps, the transformation caused memories to be repressed. I must run a full cerebral diagnostic.” Catherine nodded her agreement. 

“Hold on, don’t I get a say in this?” ONE finally asserted himself. 

Forgotten on the other side of the med bay, FOUR watched silently as the Catherine directed the GA soldiers to forcefully strap ONE into the invasive diagnostic equipment Dr Hemb produced from his brief case.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If anyone was curious about why it took FOUR so long to shake the effects of the drug... He's playing possum for some of that time in the med bay. Watching and gathering intel while everyone is focused on ONE.


	3. Chapter 3

Chapter 3

 

Captain Monroe and his typical 4 grunt entourage marched ONE and FOUR to Cell C 05. No one spoke as the crew members of the RAZA studied each other from their different sides, as the containment field fell. Removing the restraints they pushed ONE and FOUR to join the others. Captain Monroe didn’t stick around for any pleasantries.

ONE dropped his eyes, walked to the wall and slid to the floor. He was unaware that even FOUR had stopped to watch him. He wrapped his arms around his knees and dropped his head into the seclusion they could afford him. Whatever they had done, whatever that exam had been, had left him throbbing. He couldn’t seem to make anything inside himself fit into any semblance of sense. They had thrown question after question, more interested in the answers coming from their machines than his head. Who he was supposed to be, who he wanted to be, who he actually was… He couldn’t even generate a label for what he was feeling, but he could feel himself physically shaking from the intensity of it. 

THREE opened his mouth to fill the awkward moment at ONE’s expense. “No,” FOUR commanded, his single syllables backed up by the dangerous poise of his stance. Surprised at the protective move, THREE raised his hands in concession.

TWO stepped over to FOUR, “What happened?” FOUR evaded the question to study ONE. “Are you OK?” TWO whispered. “Something’s not right.” FOUR answered. TWO raised her eyebrow in question, but the chirp of an incoming communication interrupted the reunion. Calcheck appeared on the screen looking agitated. His ring finger tapped a nervous staccato that he didn’t seem aware of. “Ok, I have no F*!-ing words for the type of seriously twerked that you people attract. I’m taking an extra 2% for mental debilitation, cause there’s no way in hell I sleep again knowing what kind of sick this galaxy gets it’s rocks off with.” Calcheck visibly swallowed.

“DETAILS!” TWO barked in annoyance.

Calcheck jumped. He nodded and quickly scrolled the info on his data pad. “Ok, filtering out the things I refuse to verbalize… Weyland-Yutani has an outpost experiencing a minor Xenomorph infestation. Some big wig’s son needs to be dragged back from a Prozium commune named Libria. There’s a CEO whose daughter is causing a PR sh*! Storm at the Transcontinental Road Race. Um… Omni Consumer Products is looking for a few test subjects for their law enforcement prototype. Umbrella Corp seems to have misplaced some chemicals. Or a few of you have marriage offers that I wouldn’t recommend you consider.”

“I’m not ferrying around a payload of unstable chemicals.” THREE grumbled. “That’s a different level of crazy. We need something that isn’t going to blow up just because I shoot off my gun.”

TWO rolled her eyes and swung her head expecting ONE’s rebuttle. THREE’s natural balance, ONE allowed THREE to play his shoot first, ask questions later persona with the confidence that ONE’s opinion would temper it. But ONE didn’t give any indication that he was listening, let alone willing to engage. TWO felt an irrational need to drag him to his feet so she could read what was going on in his head from his eyes. 

But she suddenly wasn’t sure she had the right to take that liberty. She kept playing back her actions when they had been searching for a traitor in their midst. When the chips were down, she HAD chosen to stand with THREE rather than ONE. Replaying it in her head, she couldn’t help but second guess the choice and wonder what it meant for her relationship with ONE. But rather than waste time on pointless “could have been” scenarios she shelved her personal issues for later and turned to FOUR. 

“Weyland-Yutani isn’t an option,” FOUR said without elaborating. TWO raised her brow but didn’t question the comment.

VVVVV

Dr Hemb glanced around the hastily cleared office with interest. These military types were fascinatingly monastic with their simple, unadorned living accommodations. He wondered idly what types of unpublicized recreational outlets a cloistered military ship fostered. He moved up behind Catherine and extended his arm to hang a data film in her line of sight.   
With a sign Catherine accepted the film and dropped it on the seat beside her. “So, it’s really him.” She said as more of a death sentence than a question. She couldn’t quite face the idea of being legally bound to the unpolished stranger in scruffy cloths that she had met in the Med Bay. Nothing about him made him capable of claiming or wielding his position as the head of a multi galactic corporate power like Intercolactic. Their marriage hadn’t been perfect, but at least Derrick’s famous looks had turned her on, the way he could walk into any sold out venue and be seated without question had made up for most of his issues.   
Dr Hemb dropped to a squat so his head rested against hers. “Un huh,” he hummed in confirmation.   
“What a mess!” She hissed.   
“Meh,” he added non-committally.  
She angled her head towards his, “You saw him, don’t pretend this doesn’t leave you just as screwed as I am.”  
Dr Hemb chuckled, “I don’t share your objection to his makeover. The pedigree is what can’t be manufactured. It’s the DNA that we really need.”  
“We don’t have the timeline for a renovation project.” Catherine countered with disgust.  
Dr Hemb wrapped his arms around her shoulders, “Relax, he’s going to be exquisite. There’s a little assembly required. Trust me to do the job.” He rubbed a stray lock of her hair between his thumb and finger. “However, I need more of the missing pieces,” he added.  
Catherine pushed out of his embrace to turn and face him. “Don’t play, just get to the point.”  
He shrugged his agreement, “There must be some way of salvaging pieces of the lost memories. There must be some clues somewhere. I need you to negotiate access to the systems on the Raza.”  
“Oh? Is that all?” Catherine mocked.  
He leaned forward, reaching out to catch her fingers between his. “Che’ - Derrick is going to be worth the extra elbow grease. You always find a way to get what you want, you just need to want it.” 

 

VVVVVV

“I’m telling ya, picking up daddy’s little girl is the way to fall on this,” THREE argued. TWO shook her head, without SIX they didn’t have a driver to enter the Transcontinental Road Race, a point she had already made.

Calcheck shook his head, “Nah, Nah, too high maintenance. Besides, you’re going ta lose those high stakes on an ass that don’t know heads nor tail what to do with a dip stick. The Prozium dead head is the safe bet.” 

The un-announced arrival of two corporate types halted the argument. 

“Damn, you people got more twists than a meta screw! Are you deal’n underhand on me?” Calchek sqwuaked.

“We will get back to you,” TWO told Calcheck.

“Wha, No! Look, we’re like F*-ing family. I don’t give a Sh*! how tattered your tighty whiteys are. You need me, I’m your...” 

“Calcheck,” TWO warned.

“Don’t F*-ing cut…” TWO cut the connection and the screen went dark.

Taking an instant dislike for the way the new arrivals eyes seemed to peruse the goods, TWO stepped forward. 

The woman didn’t bother introducing herself when she addressed TWO. “The goods you sold, that I bought, are broken. I’m here to negotiate for the missing pieces.”

TWO stared the woman down. The accusation was a slight regardless that TWO didn’t know what the reference was to. THREE picked up the lead, “Are you getting to a point, cause we’re fresh out of hankies. Besides, why would we withhold a bunch of broken junk?”

The woman ignored THREE, keeping her cool, appraising look on TWO. “I’ll pay your release fee on top of the initial finder’s sum I’ve already paid, for the return of Derrick’s memories.”

THREE gave a low whistle, “That’s some serious dough. You trying to make a statement that looks don’t matter? Cause I ain’t never seen anyone put out like that just cause a guy can string two thoughts together.”

Catherine Moss finally turned to regard THREE with an intimate smirk, “Don’t play coy Marcus. You know I put out when I see something I want. Maybe you should choose your associations with more care.”

THREE/Marcus studied the woman. She was telegraphing that they knew each other in a carnal sense. But for the life of him he couldn’t even dredge up an impression of familiarity when he looked at her. Honestly, she looked too polished and buttoned up to be his type. Although he doubted he would have passed up any lucrative offer made by a female. He met TWO’s questioning look and gave a slight shrug in answer.

ONE surprised all of them by speaking up. He gained his feet and stepped up to the containment field to address the woman that he was struggling to reconcile as his wife. “It’s not that simple Catherine. They didn’t do anything wrong.” He could see the angle Catherine was headed and he couldn’t let his problems come down on the Raza. “This isn’t some ploy to wring you for extra money. It was just a stupid accident, a malfunction on my stasis pod.” 

TWO grabbed his arm and jerked him back to her side. It was a show of dominance, but more importantly it gained her his attention. He was warm and solid which was comforting. But the turmoil reflected in his dark eyes triggered a protective instinct she thought only FIVE could illicit. 

“Convenient,” Catherine commented dryly, looking for a new way to gain leverage. 

Dr Hemb cleared his throat. “Actually, this makes sense, the memories are not exactly missing. What’s missing is the sensory thumbnails needed to access and map - the actual memory. These thumbnails are not accessible without the fatty brain tissue humans use to compute. Even then they would be no use to any of you. Accessing them would be incomplete because the cognitive, emotional, and personal portion is missing. It has been left behind, like stripped wiring in Derrick’s head. A human brain stores all this data together. Trying to access these thumbnails would require another brain to fill in the missing components corrupting the data with the motivations, personality, and experiences of the new brain. ”

THREE looked around in confusion, “Look, I don’t speak mad scientist. Could you try that again in English?”

“It means the data they are looking for is only valuable to them coming from his experience of the memory.” FIVE’s young voice supplied, pointing at ONE.

The assumption TWO had been missing suddenly fell into place. “Unloading Moss” “Finder’s fee”. Everyone was running under the assumption that the Raza had allowed themselves to be captured for asylum while brokering the return of a high profile missing person, Derrick Moss. They probably suspected the Raza had some hand in the kidnapping but couldn’t piece together how. How much was the finder’s fee that Calcheck had negotiated? It didn’t actually matter. TWO had no intention of letting ONE or Derrick go. With new resolve TWO went on the offensive. “I don’t care for your tone. I only deal in quality, so consider the sale off. You will get your refund in full.”

“Stop posturing. You aren’t good at it and I’m in no mood for games,” Catherine countered. “I’m his wife, the Galactic Authority’s protection goes both ways. They won’t let you entertain other bidders. So we both know I’m your only deal.”

“I have no intention of selling to another party. It turns out I’m in need of crew. He can work his own debt off.” TWO responded. That comment earned her ONE’s attention and she allowed herself a small smile of satisfaction.

Catherine laughed. “Derrick? On the Raza? As what? The cabin boy? Kitchen help? I can’t even imagine a less suitable candidate.” Catherine laughed.

“If I’m that bad, why do you want me back?” ONE challenged. “Bigger question, which I’ll ask again, my wife died, so who are you really?”

“Don’t get over dramatic,” Catherine answered. 

THREE tried to stifle his chuckle. This chick certainly had ONE’s number. But he knew better than to get in the middle of a cat fight and if the feline death glares pointed his direction was any indication, that’s exactly where he had stepped.

Catherine slanted her attention towards ONE and delicately massaged her temple. “I don’t know how you expect me to take you seriously when you look so ridiculous.” She said dismissively. With a deep breath Catherine turned back to TWO. “You can’t legally keep my husband from me.”

ONE stepped back into her line of vision. “Maybe, but I can. No matter what you were promised, or paid, I still have a choice.” He stared searchingly into her eyes and dropped his voice. “Where we ever happy? Because I’m not getting a good vibe.” ONE quickly glanced at THREE wondering how Marcus fit into this new puzzle. “And if we weren’t,” He added turning back to Catherine, “then I need to know why you are here.” 

The intimacy of the question left the room awkwardly silent. TWO studied the tightly drawn lines of ONE’s back. THREE shuffled his weight wondering how any self-respecting male could have so much estrogen running through his system. FOUR silently pieced together the interactions looking for that that familiar but lost de ja vue memory emitting a warning. FIVE, with wide eyes, watched the situation spin out of control, desperate for a means to divert the collision.

“That has always been your problem Derrick, you believe everyone gets a choice.” Catherine looked him dead in the eye. “Are you capable of making the choice to forget your children? To live like they never existed?”

He was a father… A chill flush swept ONE, leaving him frozen, trembling from the strain to hold himself together. The thought of abandoning the fragile, innocent, pure love of a child… Betraying that sacred trust in him as a parent… He choked down a swallow and concentrated on the shallow compressions of his breathing. His eyes skittered towards FIVE; damning proof of how easily parentless children slip into dangerous situations. 

“Do you really see that as a choice?” Catherine pressed. “The man I married was dedicated to his marriage vow and his duty as a father. I am THAT man’s wife. So your turn, who are you?” ONE turned back to Catherine. His eyes were dark now instead of the pale jade Catherine had vowed to love in sickness or in health, but the conviction in them was the same. It was the first convincing evidence that this man could actually be her husband, Derrick. Her breath caught, suddenly realizing the stakes she was fighting for. 

ONE nodded, Catherine was right. Even without his memories, he didn’t see responsibility as a choice.

FOUR spoke up, “Pay the release fee and we will allow access to the Raza’s data backup after the Galactic Authority has released us.” TWO sent him a questioning glance but didn’t counteract the offer. 

At Catherine’s consulting glance Dr Hemb agreed. “We can handle our own security,” he said, confirming the deal.

“I’ll draft the documents and get them to your broker.” Catherine said. She was suddenly reluctant to leave. It was irrational, but she held ONE’s eyes, unwilling to let go of that moment of recognition.

“And we keep the finder’s fee,” TWO added, annoyed that the corporate pair seemed to linger. That Catherine seemed to have suddenly found something in ONE’s eyes to value. TWO was impatient for a private moment to remind FOUR who was boss. Solidarity made her stand by his offer but that didn’t mean she was happy with the outcome.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hope everyone enjoy's the sci Fi insider references in this chapter. Anyone want to say which of those jobs they would like to see a Dark matter story written around? I think they would need six back before doing a death race, and I don't see how you could write up an alien crossover without having a character death... So yeah, don't expect it to come from me.


	4. Chapter 4

“What was that!” TWO demanded, rounding on FOUR once Catherine and Dr Hemb left the occupants of containment cell C 05 to themselves.  
“Our position was compromised,” FOUR answered in a way that implied that TWO had lost the negotiation and he had done the only thing that could salvage the situation. “We lost him,” he added flicking a glance towards ONE’s subdued form.  
“Good!” THREE growled. “Wait, how is that… Never mind, couldn’t you have sold him out without offering them a house warming tour of the ship?”   
FOUR’s intense glance made THREE take a breath to cool off. “Something else is going on here,” FOUR insisted. “This buys time to figure out what.”  
“So offering them what they want was your way of prolonging the goodbye,” TWO verified. FOUR nodded. Slowly TWO nodded in appreciation, “Ok, time to get Calcheck to earn his cut. We need to know what Catherine Moss is hiding.”

**

Four armed guards entered Containment cell C 05. “Chow time,” the one with sergeant bars on his sleeve barked. “Line it up.” Checking them off against his roster he handed out green protein packets. THREE bent the plastic back and forth watching the unappetizing algae colored goo move back and forth. Figures, he thought at the same hated fishy tasting supplement that served as a last resort on the Raza.

The Sargent handed a packet to FIVE with an apologetic smile. “Sorry Kid,” he offered before turning to ONE. “Moss,” he said aloud consulting his data pad. ONE held his palm out for the protein packet. The sergeant shook his head, “You got other dinner plans,” he said grabbing ONE by the shirt and shoving him towards his armed accompaniment. The sergeant consulted his data pad again then held ONE’s leftover protein packet out to FIVE. “Don’t worry,” he told her with a wink. “It was slated for dispensing and won’t be missed.”   
“Were am I going?” ONE asked.  
“The misses filed for a conjugal,” The Sargent answered before turning to address the others. “No one takes the kid’s food,” he growled before reactivating the containment field and pushing ONE out the door before THREE could comment about the nature of ONE’s dinner plans.

***

“This is disgusting!” Catherine gripped looking at the barren room designed with automated biohazard sanitation in mind. The air had a slightly acidic chemical quality. She rubbed her temple, “It smells like it was just used,” She complained.   
“Relax,” Dr Hemb soothed carefully folding a hanging suit case pullout. “This is the cleanest place on the ship.” He added throwing himself down on the small bed.   
“This was a terrible idea,” she muttered dropping a platter on the table.   
Dr Hemb shook his head. “The room is sound proof and the sanitation methods ensure there are no listening devices. It’s perfect for a little impromptu therapy session, which is exactly what you and Derrick need for this to succeed.”

Dr Hemb and Catherine looked up as the door slide open and ONE was escorted into the room. “You can wait outside,” Catherine directed the guards. ONE warily studied the bare room. Dr Hemb reclined against the single bed attached to the corner. Catherine stood beside a pull out table set with an expensive platter of real cheese and fruit. He felt like he had just stepped into the lion’s den.

He knew he should stay silent and wait out their first move, but he was nervous and it tended to come out verbally. He clenched his jaw and folded his arms tightly around himself. Damn it his mind raced, the guards had announced a conjugal visit, a mental picture he didn’t want any of the Raza crew dwelling on. His face flushed hot wondering what TWO was thinking… No, he had to stop that. He owed it to his kids to give Catherine a chance. A fair chance - for both of them… No matter what he felt, holding back TWO wasn’t fair either, she deserved more. 

Dr Hemb stood, unzipped the hanging suitcase and handed it to ONE. At ONE’s questioning look Dr Hemb answered, “Clothes do make a man. Put them on and let Catherine and I prepare you for what you are walking into.” 

“OK,” He drew out. Talking to him like he was a person rather than an object, that was a first. ONE glanced around the room but it didn’t offer any privacy. He hesitated debating why he couldn’t just stay dressed as he was. 

“Please,” Catherine added. “This isn’t easy for me either. I look at you and see a stranger. I just need you to look a little more like yourself, ok?” ONE nodded and she turned her attention to the food platter to allow him some privacy.

Dr Hemb rolled a grape in his mouth enjoying the lean muscles of ONE’s back and narrow hips. Playfully he nudged Catherine as ONE leaned over to fasten the waistband of the slacks. Catherine rolled her eyes in annoyance, but it didn’t stop her eyes from tracking to watch the show. 

Finished, ONE ran his fingers through his hair to smooth it back as he turned. He fingered the tie draped around his neck wondering if he knew how to tie it. Catherine’s breathy “Thank heavens,” caught his attention. And he saw approval when his dark eyes met hers. She gave him a slight smile. “Not quite Derrick, but you certainly wear a suit well,” she offered in compliment. 

He nodded in acknowledgement. The dark fabric of the jacket and slacks had an expensive drape and contrasted smartly with the crisp white of the shirt. ONE felt a little naked without the snug cinch of a holster against his thigh. 

The dark suit paired with his dark looks made ONE look dashing and powerful in a more challenging way than Derrick ever had. Catherine found herself suddenly approving of the change in her husband’s physical appearance. Derrick had always had an approachable easy going air that had served him well leading the workforce but had left him vulnerable to corporate politics. 

“How does it feel?” Dr Hemb asked offering the platter of food to ONE. ONE reached out then hesitated suddenly drawing comparisons to the story of Persephone and her visit to Hades… distracted he waved off the food, wondering how he even knew Grecian mythology. “What am I walking into?” ONE asked bringing them back to the topic they had brought him there to discuss.

The hour flew by as Catherine outlined the intricate network of alliances and rivalries that ruled the upper levels of InterColactic. Dr Hemb added insight on what motivated who and the human element that contradicted the business logic at play. Together they explained the stakes and timelines already at play. It was a complicated problem that ONE embraced as a distraction from the emotional situation he found himself caught in. In his absence, Derrick’s supporters had steadily fallen to political backstabbing. Now the board of directors were pushing to declare Derrick dead so they could liquidate his family’s controlling share which would allow them to push thru a partnership with a company known for unethical workforce policies. His adversaries had succeeded in convincing the board that Catherine was unqualified to act as ward for their oldest to turn 16 and his father was out on extended FMLA from a narrowly avoided assassination attempt and unable to act in any official business capacity. The guards interrupted too soon. 

As ONE stood to leave Catherine caught his hand. She looked at him with a new appreciation. “Tell me this is something doable,” She begged. He nodded surprised to feel a familiarity for the corporate complexities. This felt like a problem he could fix. So pushed himself to ask a question he wasn’t as comfortable with, “Do our kids resent me for leaving?” Catherine looked momentarily stunned before dropping her eyes and shaking her head. ONE couldn’t figure out if she was covering up the truth to save his feelings or she hadn’t expected him to care about kids he couldn’t remember. Either way, the moment was lost to the guard’s impatience. 

VVVVV

Calcheck gave a lusty whistle of appreciation. “That bag is bullet proof. I can’t even tell if she’s the wright or wrong type of pooch, cause there’s nothing but a crap load of PR nutter fluff as a proof of life.” Calcheck’s lips pursed as he sucked on his teeth in thought. “How about you give me a sniff on how you picked up Moss? Maybe give me a mother f*k!ng clue what this needle is that I’m looking for,” He groused.

Everyone fell silent as a set of armed GA soldiers deposited ONE back behind the containment field of containment cell C05. 

Calcheck’s face crumpled in suspicion, “What’s with the corporate camo!” He demanded gesturing at ONE and his expensive tailored suit. 

One gave him an exasperated look before turning to TWO and the crew. “It sounds like Catherine only has 2 weeks to produce her husband to have any hope of holding onto her fortune.” Joining the discussion, ONE continued, “Intercolactic is looking to sign a big deal with Ameritas-Gorm and the only way they can push it thru is to have Derrick Moss legally declared dead and liquidate the Moss’s controlling share of the company.”

“Didn’t peg you for the kiss and tell type,” THREE added with a speculative look at ONE’s new clothes.

“I didn’t…” ONE fought back the flash of anger. THREE somehow always knew what buttons to push. ONE looked at TWO instead, “We just talked.” She raised her eyebrow meaningfully at his change of wardrobe. “That’s it,” He defended. “I thought this was information you should know.”

“You tell me everything and I’ll decide what I do or don’t need.” TWO pushed. “I’m still the leader.” She couldn’t help her heavy handed response. ONE looked powerful and not of their world. TWO’s instinct was to remind him of his place. To remind him that she was the boss and that his place was with her on the Raza.

ONE shook his head with a mix of frustration and defeat and turned back to see Calcheck making notes on his data pad. “What?” He shot at the broker.

Calcheck nodded his head agreeably, “Nah, this is gold. Sending Corso to lather up Moss’s old lady? Brilliant! What else did she let slip while creasing the bed sheets?” Calcheck looked at ONE expectantly. ONE shook his head in frustration. Despite her personal aversion for the topic, TWO was relieved to see ONE reengaged with the crew. THREE laughed outright at ONE’s expense. Even FOUR gave a slight smile enjoying the comradery. FIVE looked on amused; fairly certain ONE hadn’t slept with the enemy.


	5. Chapter 5

! author’s note – I’m bringing in the Android. But Dr Hemb has three androids also. To cut down on the confusion, I’m telling you now that I’ll refer to the Raza’s android as Android. All other Androids I will refer to as synthetics.!

Captain Monroe oversaw the transfer of the Raza crew back to their ship. He watched Catherine and Dr Hemb power up the Raza’s android with disbelief. Of all the idiotic stupidity that the human race was capable, this was the worst he had ever been called to participate in. Sure, the higher you went in a chain of management the more disconnected they became from reality… But these two had basically dropped 7.5 million to have the Gallactic Authority put them in a position to be robbed blind by the Raza. And that’s assuming a best case scenario where the two aren’t killed immediately. This was bizarre logic. He had tried to talk some sense and they had complained that he was being difficult. A formal reprimand! The sooner he was done with these mental cases the better. He was following orders under protest and he struggled not to smile as THREE rubbed at the bruise forming across his cheekbone. No one had specifically ordered the captain to return the fire arms they had confiscated. And when the tall blond thug had made a fuss about leaving his guns behind, the captain had found it cathartic to vent his frustrations physically. 

He turned to address the young girl with color enhanced curls. “You sure you don’t want to stick with us?” he asked FIVE. “Whatever you got going on back home, I’m sure it’s got to be safer than this lot,” he offered. FIVE shyly shook her head no and slowly moved around the edge of the room. She didn’t like that she had caught the authority’s attention and felt safer with TWO and the rest of the Raza between her and the well intentioned busy body GA captain. Captain Monroe shrugged. It never turned out well to help people that didn’t want help. With practiced efficiency he verified he had met all the stipulations of the catch and release contract. 5 Raza crew members in temporary plastic tie constraints – check. Dr Hemb’s luxury liner’s shuttle docked to the Raza – check. Dr Hemb, Catherine Moss, accompanied by three of their synthetics for security – check. Captain Monroe motioned to his men to wrap it up. He then leveled a finger at TWO and ordered, “Behave yourselves. Remember you’re under a good behavior clause for the next three months. If you get popped for anything it’s a one way ticket to maximum security with no chance for arbitration or due legal proceedings.” And with that he and his men beat a hasty retreat.

FOUR produced a knife out of thin air and freed his wrists. He turned to TWO, but she used her strength to snap the thin plastic restraints. TWO watched Catherine seat ONE on a med table and slide between his legs suggestively to cut his wrists free. She bit back a flash of temper and turned to address the rest of her crew as THREE tried to take the knife to free himself. She pointed at FOUR and hissed, “THREE and I are going to the bridge to get the ship systems back online. Don’t let anything get out of hand.” With that she pushed THREE towards the exit without another glance in ONE’s direction.

Dr Hemb asked the Raza’s android a few questions. She had a quirky delivery but was helpfully informative. She couldn’t assist him, being physically hampered by the same restraining bolts TWO and THREE had left to address. But he quickly had Derrick laid out with a sedative and directed his own med synthetic to apply electrodes to Derrick’s temples. 

The Android catalogued the doctor’s actions as a distraction from the systems offline static the GA’s restraining bolts were drowning her in. She struggled thru the GA’s junk data to access a temp copy from virtual ram to compare the doctor’s actions to what they had done when attempting to retrieve memory data from FIVE. She blinked in agitation as Dr Hemb’s synthetic accessed her data stores with an abrupt request syntax and annotated coding access calls. She switched to running on the background operating system and watched as they ran a search engine through the medical electrode interface then looped it back into the Raza’s systems encoded as a worm virus. Concern flickered momentarily before she cocked her head to initiate virus counter measures. She struggled through the GA’s data fog trying to seal off critical protocols ahead of the multiplying system hack.

VVVV

On the bridge TWO handed a wrench and screwdriver to THREE before grabbing the rest of the tool box and heading for the blackened housing of the Raza’s central console. With a grunt, THREE pulled the punctured housing of the Nav console to get at the damage behind.  
“So, we really letting the ice queen and Dr strange love walk off the ship with Derrick Moss?” THREE called out from beneath the navigation console. “Cause, if there was EVER a moment begging us to live up to those criminal reputations we have, this would be it.”   
“Really?” TWO dead panned. She lay on her side trying not to think of what was happening in the med bay while elbows deep in fried system support wiring. The GA hadn’t cared what they were punching through when attaching their inhibitor bolts.

“Yeah, I mean sure it would be a relief to saddle someone else with that bleeding heart. But then, they dropped a serious pay load for pretty boy without batting an eye. Makes you wonder if maybe were sitting on the short side of the deal.” THREE continued conversationally.  
“Huh, so THIS is your thing?” She said in realization. “First it was stopping me from getting shoved out the airlock and now it’s keeping ONE from walking out that door. Next is going to be dragging SIX’s ass back, right?”  
“Hell yeah!” THREE answered. “I’m not letting SIX walk off scott free.”  
THREE will do anything to avoid losing people TWO realized. As much as he was good at denying it, he considered all of the crew his people. On the one hand it made THREE more endearing, knowing he cared so much. On the other, it annoyed her that she had misread it, fallen into some naïve notions about grand romantic gestures. Allowed a quickly expanding gulf between her and ONE that she had a hand in starting. She growled in frustration. She hated making mistakes and the waste that went into fixing them. She was the captain and needed to be better than that.  
“So what, we detain ONE from returning to his family and drop the other two off at the nearest port? Are you volunteering to babysit while he adjusts to the change in plans?” TWO snapped.  
“Eff that, I’m not the one sleeping with him, aren’t you supposed to be able to make him forget the other woman, or something like that?” THREE shot back. He sighed and the shared silence spoke volumes. This was ONE they were talking about. Mr Morality just wasn’t built to let go of the responsibilities of being a husband and father. Kids had pretty much sealed the deal. “Don’t you think it’s a little strange that Mrs VP was flirting with me one moment and then nailing ONE to the wall with a couple of kids?” THREE wondered. “I mean, you saw the way she looked at me. That don’t strike me as the kind of wholly owned, happily ever someone like ONE’s going for.”  
“Like you would know? What is it you are looking for?” Two redirected. In her mind ONE seemed like the type to commit, 100%, fanatically, regardless of his degree of happiness, which was what worried her most about the situation.  
“Me? I’m more of a love ‘em and leave ‘em kinda guy,” THREE boasted.  
“That’s a load of crap,” TWO accused though gritted teeth. Her effort was rewarded when the electromagnetic foot of the inhibitor bolt released and the device clattered to the metal grating.   
THREE frowned but feigned absorption getting purchase on his inhibitor bolt. TWO grabbed her loose bolt, tossed it in the tool box and strode over to THREE. “ONE may be wired to imprint on a one true love but you can’t stand losing people.” She sighed and leaned against the nav console. “It’s two different ways to the same thing.” The realization didn’t help her much in deciding which of them she preferred.   
“Ok, what does that mean?” THREE asked. With a grunt, he managed to dislodge the inhibitor bolt. The Raza’s systems surged with a soft whirring. Electronic beeps alerted them as systems came back online. Green for good, yellow for dropped data, and red indicating hardware damage. TWO handed him a roll of spare wiring. “It doesn’t mean anything until we can get the navigation systems working.” She answered.

The Android’s eyes fluttered with the power surge following freedom from the GA’s inhibitors. Suddenly free to act she started isolating the invading virus, forcing it to turn back and consume itself. Dr Hemb sighed audibly in frustration. 

“Problems?” FOUR asked.

Dr Hemb placed his hands on either side of ONE’s head and rested his forehead against ONE’s. He closed his eyes to concentrate. Wrapping himself in the scent of Derrick’s hair, the warmth of his breath, the feel of the pulse at his temples. “Talk to me,” he whispered. Catherine’s hand pulled Dr Hemb back. “It’s not working,” She observed. Dr Hemb spun to look at FOUR and FIVE. “What have you already tried?”

FOUR shook his head.

“You had to have tried something.” Dr Hemb countered. He smiled turning on the charm, “Someone wakes up with amnesia and you don’t do nothing.” He looked at FIVE and changed his tact. “Don’t you want to help him? How would you feel if your dad came home and didn’t remember you?”

FIVE looked nervously at FOUR and dropped her eyes to the ground. “We can’t help.” FOUR stepped in. He could see FIVE’s desire to help ONE, but all of them had already discussed the possibility. All of them agreed it was too dangerous. ONE had been adamant that he didn’t want FIVE to risk it.

Dr Hemb turned back to the medical readouts, tapping his finger in agitation. “The stasis units are all on the same system. How is it that Derrick was the only one affected?” He asked.

Four glanced at the Android who still seemed frozen and wondered how much longer TWO and THREE would be. “We didn’t use the stasis pods.” FOUR answered.

Catherine glanced at Dr Hemb aware that he was signaling her to get involved, but unsure what he wanted. So she played the emotional wife card. “It’s ok,” She soothed, stepping up to Derrick’s unconscious form. “It’s enough just to get him back. The kids… um, none of this is easy, but we can get through it as a family.” She waved at one of Dr Hemb’s synths to scoop Derrick up from the med table. “Thanks for letting us try.” She said softly.   
FOUR glanced at the door way feeling a need to stall until TWO and THREE showed. FIVE picked up on his tension. As the synth carrying ONE turned to follow Catherine, FIVE spoke up. “Wait! Um…” FOUR glared at her to stop. “Maybe I can help,” She pushed ahead. Dr Hemb looked between FOUR and FIVE. There was definitely a silent dialogue going on. One of them protective, one of them defiant. “You were affected by the faulty stasis unit also,” Dr Hemb guessed. FIVE gave a slight nod. Dr Hemb gestured at an empty med table. “No, it’s too dangerous,” FOUR said stopping FIVE. She looked at Dr Hemb. “Maybe he can try without putting me under.” She offered.  
Dr Hemb “You tried this before and had difficulty pulling them back out of the lost memories,” he guessed. He waved his synth to place ONE back on the med table. He picked up ONE’s wrist and checked the pulse. “Then we won’t put them both under.” Dr Hemb said like that was the solution.  
Five crawled onto the med table. FOUR stood at her side protectively, clearly unhappy with the situation. Dr Hemb handed a set of electrodes to FOUR, realizing the delicate situation called for careful handling. He then handed an oral sleeping pill to FOUR. FOUR stared at the blue gel oval in his palm. “She will be groggy, but you will be able to wake her up at any moment,” Dr Hemb promised. FIVE took the pill and swallowed it. Then she took FOUR’s hand and lay back onto the table. FOUR glanced again at the med bay, willing TWO and THREE’s arrival. Slowly, FIVE drifted asleep.  
Dr Hemb turned back to the med readouts. Typing in directions for the electrodes to bring ONE and FIVE’s biorhythms closer together. Lights flickered monitoring brainwave activity.

The Android was reconstructing the bus protocols between corrupted data packaging systems when a background system monitor alerted her that a second set of medical electrodes had been initiated and were registering data. With a blink she made a duplicate of herself and sent it to investigate. No one noticed the Android’s eyes becoming alert. She registered both ONE and FIVE as the source of the incoming data. FOUR did not look pleased. So she back tracked the streaming data to piece together the requests and responses coming from the medical console. She blinked with irritation recognizing coding signatures similar to what the worm virus had been carrying. Her service protocols demanded she verify any action that would counteract what a crew member had initiated. But she broke the code’s closing state prematurely, tagged the error log as virus damage and set about shutting down the data streams flowing through medical as an extenuated precaution against the initial virus activity.

Dr Hemb watched in confusion as the data he was thrilled to find quickly tapered and dwindled to nothing. He tried a few more commands before giving up. “Well, something is better than nothing,” he declared and offered his hand to FOUR. FOUR’s decidedly unfriendly glare made him rethink the action. Instead he turned to Catherine. “I think we got everything there was to glean. Hopefully it will be enough.” Dr Hemb’s synth scooped ONE’s unconscious form back up. FOUR was about to move to stop them when he felt FIVE’s hand twitch in his. “She should be ready to wake in the next 20 to 25 minutes.” Dr Hemb supplied. “Now, let’s agree to honor the contract and let us leave without any trouble?” Dr Hemb said in farewell. 

FOUR was about to do something to stall them when FIVE shifted with a soft whimper. FOUR patted her cheek trying to get her to wake up. Her eyes had started to stream tears. She grabbed the front of his shirt and held on with a death grip. He cradled her to his chest. He turned back to the empty med bay exit. Where the hell was TWO and THREE? The hollow metallic thump of Dr Hemb’s shuttle disengaging sent TWO and THREE sprinting the last corridors to medical. They found FOUR struggling to hold a distraught FIVE. Tears were streaming down her face as she struggled alternating between screaming for help or whispering a heart rending litany of denials.


	6. Chapter 6

#Author note – For Mature Audience – buyer beware the torture begins.#

Dr Hemb walked into his personal med bay absorbed in statistics surrounding the Raza’s inert form. He breathed an audible sigh of relief when his Synth finished calculating the complicated series of FTL jumps he requested and initiated the first jump. Derrick lay upon a med table like a modern day sleeping beauty myth. Dr Hemb squared off with Catherine on Derrick’s other side.   
She had freed the pearl buttons of his dress shirt to splay her fingers against his chest. “Do you think we got what we need?” She asked using the edge of her fingernail to mark a line across Derrick’s skin.   
“We will see.” Dr Hemb answered. “I won’t have time to assess what, if any additional memory data has been assimilated before I send him across to you via the transfer transit unit, but we have more than we did. Play it safe. Have him wake up in bed beside you, like this has all been a bad dream. We can adjust from there.”  
“Jacob is going to ask when to expect the real Derrick,” Catherine commented.  
Dr Hemb smiled darkly in answer, “Let him hang, it serves him right.”  
Catherine shook her head and set about stripping to return the bio matter to the transit transfer unit tucked against the far wall. She would be glad to get back to her true body. She was even more eager to see the results that Dr Hemb’s theory that the Transfer traveler technology would result in a Derrick that looked correct. Maybe she could have the best of both worlds; a famous husband to parade around town and a wanted thief to tie against the headboard of her bed.

VVVVV

*SNAP*  
A white double plush wool carpet. Translucent white silk draperies. White Calacutta marble flooring with wide dove grey veining. Frosted ancient art deco wall sconces. Bed sheets of bleached egyptian cotton. 

*SNAP*  
Unimaginable luxury painted in a striking abstract pattern of glistening crimson. A porcelain complexion drained until blue stained the edges. Miniature extremities pieced and scattered in patterns that defied the observer to recognize their initial confirmation. 

*SNAP*  
Hands too numb to offer comfort for a dying breath. Air too heavy with the scent of copper to draw into starved lungs. A high pitched keening too pervasive to determine it’s origin.

*SNAP*  
Derrick cradled the tiny figure of his son to his chest. He curled around it, pouring his own body heat into it’s cooling one, desperately offering anything, everything to help the newborn live beyond the moment. But it was too little and the babe had been cut free too soon. The red of his wife and daughter settled into the cracks of his skin; stained the bed of his fingernails; stiffened the wool of his suit. The deadened silence was shattered by the baying howls of approaching emergency response vehicles. There was no mercy. Derrick threw his head back, his pain joining the terrible chorus as it rose in crescendo.

*SNAP*  
FIVE bolted from the nightmare like a ship breaking free of a black hole’s gravitational pull. TWO caught her mid air and pulled her into an embrace. “Deep breaths,” TWO ordered working to head off hyperventilation. FIVE gasped, hiccupped, shuddered, her body misfiring through different physical reactions to shock. FIVE clung to TWO because her life depended on it. “They’re dead.” She gasped. “The pieces, all the horrible pieces.” The jumbled words still made no sense except to FIVE.

Across the room the Android gave a slight jitter then turned her head. “Systems online,” she said expectantly. TWO frowned, the Android’s sensor calibration seemed to be off, because although she was speaking to TWO, her focus was on empty space three feet to TWO’s right. FOUR sprinted through the med bay door. He glanced at TWO before speaking to THREE via his comm unit. “The Android is moving.”   
Two tapped her comm unit relieved to find that it was finally working. “It looks like her spatial sensors need to be rebooted.” TWO added. The sound of metal crashing against metal and a string of THREE’s curses came back in answer. 

“Here,” TWO ordered handing FIVE off to FOUR. “Get her to talk. We need a handle on the situation so we can move the moment the Raza is capable.” FOUR gave her a look of disbelief. To his knowledge, he had never studied the art of conversation. With the Android on her heels, TWO hesitated on her way out of the Med bay, “And… I don’t mean make her talk… the way we probably… usually… make people talk.” TWO fumbled on before giving up on the awkward direction. She hurried away before FOUR could respond.

VVVVVV  
ONE woke with a gasp. A soft warm breeze teased the silk framing the french doors. The air had a gentle feel that only planet side atmosphere could achieve as it brightens towards dawn. The pale shapes of the bedroom were both familiar and alien. He rolled to find a warm curved body beside him. With a smile he slid an arm around her waist, his talisman against the panic of the nightmare that had begun to fade. He nuzzled her dark locks, planting a kiss against the soft nape of her neck. She purred in encouragement but the floral keynote of her perfume, a jasmine or rose left him with a warning note. She covered his hand with her own, pulling him tight against her back until his knuckles brushed the bare curve of her breast, then arched like a big cat stretching, pushing her ass back against his groin. His breath shuddered and his blood rapidly vacated for nether regions leaving him feeling muzzy. She pushed his palm flat and slowly directed it downward. The friction of her skin sliding beneath his amped his heart rate and she chuckled as his body made his reaction obvious. His fingertips trailed over a slight ridge just before her curls. His brain fought to breach the wave of desire. His body begged to disregard whatever nuisance had brought it back online. Lifting himself, he rolled her back beneath him so he could lose himself in her eyes. But Catherine’s heavily lidded pale eyes set him back on his heels. He had been looking for the fathomless hunger of TWO’s eyes. “Uh, sorry,” he fumbled, “We shouldn’t…”   
Catherine smiled at his struggle for control. She sat forward and reached for him. “You definitely should,” she murmured. “It’s what married couples do,” She reminded wrapping her fingers around his sensitive skin. ONE hastily grabbed her wrist to stall the movement. “Wait, I don’t,” He searched for an acceptable reason, that didn’t boil down to, you’re not TWO. “I don’t have protection.”  
Catherine laughed outright. “Aw, sweetie, you really don’t remember much.” She pulled her hand free and cupped his jawline. “Babies are the reason you and I are together. It took you 7 years last time, I hardly think you could get that lucky the first time up after so long.”  
ONE frowned at the condescension. “What does that mean?” he challenged moving out of reach and pulling a sheet around his waist.   
Catherine studied him, his preference for another simmered in the background, but she had ever been a supporter of monogamy. If she was smart she would drop it. But Derrick had always been the smart one. Having the intellectual advantage was a novelty too sweet to give up. She gave a slight shrug. “You’ll figure it out, it’s no secret.” She moved to slide from the bed adding, “Enjoy the bliss.”  
ONE frowned and shook his head as if trying to jar some memory loose. “Wait,” he called. “I’m here, I’m trying. We’re supposed to be partners. This won’t work if… Can we just start with honesty and go from there?”  
Catherine hid her sly smile before turning to him. “Derrick, you are the family’s golden boy for reasons that have nothing to do with business acumen.” The confusion on his face was priceless. “You are the only viable Moss that’s been born in the last 60 years. The family’s gene pool is just that shallow.”   
ONE dropped his head. He wasn’t sure what was more unbelievable, that his sole worth was propagation or that he had infertility issues. It was a telenovela one, two punch to his intelligence and his masculinity. “What do you mean by viable?”   
“There is a B level studbook,” Catherine answered, “Offspring with red light origins.”  
“You’re lying,” ONE accused. “I can’t be the only child born in the last 60 years if 7 years together resulted in twins.”  
“You still don’t remember them,” Catherine groaned. “Coffee first, then we can figure out what gaps need filling in.” She said abandoning the bed.


	7. Chapter 7

TWO, THREE, FOUR, and FIVE sat in the Raza’s mess hall. FIVE used her sleeves, pulled past her fingers as insulation from her metal cup. She stared down, watching a wisp of steam dance between her and her reflection in the stainless steel of the table top. Thankfully, the memories, Derrick’s memories, were beginning to fade. If Dr Hemb’s explanation were to be believed, she had experienced them like watching video on a monitor. The imagery and content, while traumatic, wouldn’t stay with her the same as if she had actually lived thru it.  
THREE tapped his spoon in thought. “Is anyone else confused?” he asked taking a bite of the “brown stuff” on his plate. “If ONE’s wife and kids are dead, was that Catherine chick an imposter?”  
TWO shook her head no. She wasn’t even pretending to eat the food on her plate. “The GA’s identity verification procedures are comprehensive. The odds are against an imposter passing and getting access onboard a GA ship. Not to mention the additional identity authentication required for signing that Catch and Release contract.”   
“In the memory, how does ONE actually verify that his wife is dead?” FOUR asked.  
FIVE looked at FOUR silently pleading not to rehash the details. “It’s an important detail,” FOUR offered in apology. FIVE sighed and closed her eyes to concentrate. “Does he check her pulse?” FOUR prompted. After a moment, FIVE shakes her head no.   
“Does he check her breathing?” TWO asks. Again, FIVE slowly shakes her head no.  
“Are we playing 20 questions?” THREE huffed in exasperation. “Why say she’s dead, if she’s not?”  
“Her whole belly is… open,” FIVE’s voice broke, “ropy… parts are spilled out. There’s so much blood.”  
FOUR pushed his uneaten food away. “FIVE is right, that’s not the kind of wound you survive. With hari kari it takes hours to die. But once the intestines are disemboweled there’s no putting that back together.”  
The crew looked up at the sound of approaching steps. The Android clipped the doorway as she entered the mess hall, stumbling a step into the flat wear storage before catching her balance. An avalanche of metal plates clattered to the ground as she failed to catch them. With a look of slight befuddlement she wobbled out of the clutter and turned her attention to the crew. She cocked her head expectantly, “I have calculated 1,248 potential jump destinations for the Purveyor.”  
THREE looked at FOUR and mouthed, “Purveyor?”   
“The name of Dr Hemb’s ship,” FOUR supplied.  
The Android turned to address the wall panel to FOUR’s right. “That is correct.” The ship monitor mounted on the far wall shifted from diagnostic data to a galactic map. “The possibilities expand exponentially every 2.3 seconds. Here are the results as of 5 seconds ago.”  
THREE looked with disbelief at what looked like a picture of the Milky Way. “The hell are we going to find ONE now? We just ain’t that lucky.”  
“What does it look like if you filter for possibilities with space port docking capabilities that are not on direct vectors to Intercolactic HQ?” TWO asked.  
“Calculating,” the android said staring intently at a spot on THREE’s ear.  
“Aw, come on! When is that going to get fixed?” THREE groused. He shoved himself to his feet, “We ain’t making a jump anywhere until the bot can detect up from down.” He moved towards the door.  
“Where are you going?” TWO questioned.  
“Going to try to fix the glitch while you all play russian roulette trying to locate Dr Frankenstein.” THREE explained. He paused just outside the doorway. “Sides, this way I don’t get stuck cleaning dishes again.” With a wave he disappeared. 

VVVVV

 

Jacob Moss took a moment to adjust the dials on his antique wrist watch. The halls at HQ were more familiar to him than his penthouse on central, the estate bordering Valles Marineris, or the family homestead on the diamond coast. The last 5 weeks on FMLA, mandated leave from work, had been like being exiled from his family. Technically, he was just visiting and he had a visitor beacon pinned to his lapel should anyone from legal catch him on the premise. But, from his perspective, a more accurate description would be that he was stalling. Although he welcomed any excuse to “come home”, a last minute plea to meet in his “private office” from his daughter in law spelled monumental trouble...

Now there was a hiring decision he truly regretted. You would be surprised what types of details a resume and full background check can miss. But he had compounded the mistake thinking he could manage the situation. That conceit left him complicit in losing his only son. So when Catherine requested an audience, his inclination was to schedule an extended business trip on the farthest outpost the galaxy had to offer. A survival tactic the FMLA curtailed, leaving him dragging his feet outside his own office’s doorway. 

Jacob’s personal android stood patiently waiting to open the door for him. For kicks, his wife had taken to calling the machine as Mac from the moment Jacob had shown up with the android at his heels. “What’s up Mac?” Jacob said initiating a verbal report of alerts from several of the informational feeds that the android compiled to keep Jacob in the know. Jacob’s attention began to wander as the topics veered towards tech debt and internal process maintenance. 

Five more days would mark the 7th anniversary of his son’s disappearance. Jacob still felt that eternal father’s hope that his son was alive but the board had marked it as an end date for closing all open issues regarding Derrick. In essence, the organization Jacob considered his family would be burying his son. Time to face the music, Jacob thought.

Stepping through the door Jacob faltered, suddenly grateful for the silver cane he swung as an accessory. “Derrick.” The name burst from Jacob at the cherished silhouette standing beside Catherine. Catherine practically glowed with smug self-congratulation. Again ONE was faced with the overwhelming feeling of being an imposter and turned to address the senior executive. Derrick’s father’s robust intellect defied the silver plating of his age. Jacob grabbed the nearest leather wingback for support as his heart reminded him why he was on FMLA. Take it easy, Dr’s orders he reminded.

Sensing Jacob’s distress, ONE glanced at Catherine. She seemed content to watch her father in law swallow this slice of humble pie whole. Ignoring the flash of frustration with the woman, ONE stepped forward. “Here,” he said, directing Jacob into the padded chair. Taking the closest seat, Jacob admired his son’s natural inclination to rescue another’s pride. Until Catherine’s eye roll caught his attention. “I’ll take it from here,” Jacob announced effectively telling his daughter in law to get out. Catherine shook her head and slid her hip onto the arm of ONE’s chair, staking her claim. “I just got him back, papa. You don’t really expect me to let him out of my sight, do you?” She propped her elbow on ONE’s shoulder and gave Jacob a smug glance. 

Jacob frowned, trying to recall what expense she had been trying to wheedle out of him lately. A luxury spacer? Real estate on the Mare Insularum? He was about to offer up whatever it was a dance he and Catherine had perfected in their tug of war over Derrick. When he noticed Derrick shift uncomfortably away from Catherine’s touch, the subtle body language left Jacob speechless. This looked like his son, but something drastic had changed, had shaken the boy’s devotion to his wife. On impulse Jacob leaned forward to grasp his son’s hand to reassure himself that his boy was real. 

ONE hesitated, unsure, but aware that he had just done something wrong that had caught the senior executive’s laser focus. The tremor in the man’s strong grasp whispered a deep undercurrent of emotional turmoil. “Um, I don’t…”   
But Jacob waved him off, “Do you remember that time…” 

Jacob’s affection was genuine. ONE could feel the man’s love for Derrick in the warmth of his grip, the earnest set of his eyes, the well worn proud parent stories. The problem was that no amount of wishing was making ONE feel like the real Derrick Moss. He struggled beneath the building pressure in his head to give Jacob his full attention, anything less would have been cruel. Jacob watched his every response, taking every reaction to heart; ONE could sense the father’s confusion at his inability to respond like expected. The deception was finally too much and ONE halted Jacob.

The first salvo of an impending migraine arced thru ONE’s head. “Wait, I don’t,” ONE winced. “My stasis pod malfunctioned; I woke up without even knowing my own name.” ONE stared at Jacob trying to maintain the honest connection the man had opened. Ignoring Catherine’s sudden objections, “You obviously love your son, but all I have is a DNA scan telling me I’m someone I’m not.” Catherine’s nails dug a warning into ONE’s shoulder. He pulled away from her and stood. “Stop playing with people’s emotions.” ONE warned his wife. “You can’t just… He deserves to know. I’m just a blank slate.” ONE raised his fingers to his temple seeking some relief from the ringing in his head to continue. “You asked me to come back, to help pick up the responsibilities of our kids. I’m here, but it would be a mistake to pretend that I’m him.”  
Catherine stepped into his face. “How convenient,” She spat, “you keep clinging to this excuse not to accept who you are. None of us are perfect, but at least we are trying. A genetic scan is definitive, yet you continue to cling to your denial. So who’s the hypocrite!” Catherine fell silent noting her husband’s pallor, the crease of pain in his brow. “Derrick?”  
ONE closed his eyes concentrating on breathing through the thunder in his head. He startled at Catherine’s touch on his face. She looked worried and her finger’s came away from his nose dark. Jacob jumped to his feet taking command of the situation. He thrust an embroidered square of linen into Derrick’s hand, guiding it to his bloody nose when ONE hesitated at the expense of the material.  
“Migraine,” ONE supplied in answer to Jacob’s concern. “I’ll be OK. I just need a moment.” Jacob noted Catherine dialing a number into his office wall console as he lead Derrick into the hall towards the restrooms. He made a note to recall Catherine’s conversation later. One of the perks of being the boss with super user access to all security and communication tracking feeds.

VVVV

Catherine paced as the call was routed across the galaxy through several relay stations. After several seconds of delay the image resolved. Dressed in a pale silk Kimono, Dr Hemb stared back at her with heavily lidded eyes. He took note of the corporate setting behind her and lazily set about belting his wrap closed. Catherine held her fingers up disregarding that she had already whipped Derrick’s blood away. “Stop playing around!” She shouted.   
A slow leer gave rise to the edges of his mouth. He brought two fingers to his nose and slowly trailed them over his mouth and down his chin. He laughed at her sour look. “Done with your new toy already?” he asked.  
“What did you do?” Catherine demanded.  
Dr Hemb shrugged. He reached off screen to pick up a carmine stained rag and proceeded to clean beneath his nails adding to the stain patterns. “Your prized stud is quite the handful. If you have a viable version, treat him with care. The memory data recovered is incomplete and proving to have a rather toxic effect.”  
Catherine sank into the nearest chair. “So you haven’t recovered any of the account access codes.” She sighed. “Is it even there?”  
Dr Hemb held his finger up to pause the conversation as he called to his android, “Don’t bother changing the sheets. Just clean up the worst of the dust and we’ll have another go.” He turned back to Catherine. “If it’s there, I’ll find it.” He promised. “Now why are you interrupting?”  
“Derrick, had some kind of attack; nosebleed, migraine, loss of focus.” Catherine answered.  
“Unexpected,” He commented. “But I can’t stop now. So do your best with what you have.”   
“Just scale back until the press release.” Catherine surprised herself by pleading.  
Dr Hemb smiled, permission to pursue a few of his diversions appealing to him. “Handle with care,” he cautioned, “because version 2.0 is an emotional wreak. I’ve confirmed the data dump is from the period of your attack, you never saw how dark he went. Coming fresh off those memories he’s uncontrollably… HOT.” Dr Hemb breathed.

 

VVVV

Jacob wasn’t sure yet what to make of ONE’s confession that he wasn’t Derrick. It would take some deep consideration. So he acted on his gut. He eased ONE against the counter and handed him a pill bottle. ONE took the offered kindness with dismay. The old executive was still treating him like a son despite ONE’s warning. “Look,” Jacob felt compelled to explain himself. “You’re right, I’ll accept that I don’t know what the truth is here. But I think you are searching for it as hard as I am. So let’s be honest with each other. You look like my son, that’s going to be hard for me to get around. But I noticed right off that you are different, you don’t react like Derick would. He was blind to Catherine’s true nature, to some of the uglier realities of life, to the effects of people’s weaknesses. I had a hand in him being that way. But you do share his heart and that makes me wonder.”  
ONE lowered his eyes. He didn’t know what to say. The argument made ONE wonder himself. Sensing the awkwardness, Jacob excused himself to check on Catherine. Allowing ONE the luxury of a private moment.

 

ONE shuddered and fisted his hands against his temples. His head pulsed, pain keeping score with the staccato of his heart. He fumbled with the cap of the pill dispenser sending a cascade of blue gel across the six basins of the public bathroom’s counter. With a curse, he dove after them in pursuit, managing to deflect a few to the floor before they made their escape down the drain. Collapsing to his knees, he plucked a few of the aqua pearls from the tile seams. The medicine quivered in his palm as his pain threshold negotiated terms with the gag reflex of swallowing anything off a public restroom floor. He tossed the set back, at the sound of the door, choking as they lodged themselves, like buckshot in the back of his thought. He pulled himself up, to get relief from the faucet. A flash of movement warned him too late that it wasn’t Catherine that had come seeking him.  
A corded forearm wrapped him tightly into a headlock, shoving ONE forward against the hard marble of the counter. “Hey cuz,” a deep voice hissed into his ear. ONE strained to catch the image in the mirror. Quickly discounting the face he still didn’t associate with himself, the other man rubbed his head against ONE’s in a rough caress. Catching and holding ONE’s gaze with a set of green to match Derrick’s. The similarity in their features was remarkable, but where Derrick was dark this man was light; Blond hair, caramel colored brows, eyelashes that failed to define his eyes. ONE tried to shake the related stranger, but there was no friendly give. “Tsk, tsk… What, no warm welcome for your favorite cousin? Imagine my surprise to hear that the prodigal son chose to return.” The pressure across ONE’s windpipe increased. “How did it feel to kill the bastard that took everything from you?”   
ONE was done playing nice. He twisted and threw his shoulder forward into the mirror. Carried forward the man’s head shattered the mirror with a grunt. Grabbing a shard with his bare hand ONE buried it in the arm cutting off his air. The weight around his neck vanished. ONE’s mouth gaped, sucking air greedily past the shadow of bruising. Fingers dug into his hair and spun him backward into the wall. Taking a knee, ONE threw an elbow, then bucked his head back connecting with the skull of his attacker. The blunted beak of a wingtip striking at his kidneys sent ONE writhing backward through the sharp glitter scattered by the broken mirror.   
ONE helicoptered a kick into his stalker’s knee buying enough time to get upright. The sudden elevation change was murder on his headache and he stumbled for footing, sliding across the brittle grit littering the floor. ONE crouched, scarlet dripped from the fingers of his right hand. His attacker mocked mimicked him, newfound respect lacing his hesitation. “Guess I had that coming,” He panted. “Picked up a few new moves from your time underground, right killer? You always were the all or nothing type.” He shifted forward watching as ONE compensated. “Gotta admit, I didn’t really think you had it in you.”  
“Don’t be so sure,” ONE answered.   
Derrick’s cousin swallowed, “So, what? You just forgive Catherine her part and the two of you just pick up like nothing ever happened?” He feinted then threw a jab that ONE blocked. “That sensitive hero of the people thing is just the wool you put on to feel better than the rest of us”   
“I’m not sure what your problem is, but I’m really not in the mood,” ONE answered. He was done trying to find the right move in his world of ambiguity when it only uncovered more confusion. The violent struggle for survival was a relief; a chance to turn his head off, a distraction from the pain, an opportunity to act without second guessing. His hand twitched toward his thigh, instinctively reaching for the phantom itch of his missing pistol holster.  
With a bloody grin, ONE’s attacker pulled a small gun from his pocket. ONE’s only thought was that THREE would flat out laugh at the meager weapon, maybe toss off a dismissive comment and offer the guy a chance to see what a real gun looked like.


	8. Chapter 8

“Be Careful.” TWO whispered giving FIVE a quick embrace before the crew split up. Substation G NOC 234, a mid-class port was their third and last hope to catch a lead on ONE. They were splitting up to cover ground faster. Strapping on extra fire power, THREE was headed to the sub levels to comb the underground spacer network for any sign of the Purveyor. FIVE was taking the Android to see if they could get a look at the docking manifesto. TWO and FOUR were going to try infiltrating a Meikke combine cruiser to insert a listening bug to their network of ship logs.   
TWO and FOUR pulled their communicator’s from their ear and left them in their lockers. “Don’t do anything I would do,” THREE said clapping FOUR on the arm but holding TWO’s eyes. With a wink at FIVE he spun on his heel and left with a determined step. FIVE gave TWO and FOUR a determined smile, “Good Luck,” she offered before descending the docking ramp with the Android at her side. FOUR nodded readiness and TWO sealed up the RAZA behind them.

FIVE and the Android were easy to spot at the dive they had chosen as a rendezvous. FIVE distracted herself by worrying the edge of her sleeve and the Android studied the humanity around her like it was a spectator sport. THREE unslung Bubba and laid the oversized gun on the table while signaling a passing waitress. “Any luck?” FIVE asked looking painfully hopeful. THREE shook his head no and looked away without a word. The table was oddly quiet despite the pumping music and the buzz of intoxicated conversation. The waitress dropped a large lager in front of THREE and the trio settled in to wait for the other two.  
TWO stormed the bar with FOUR in tow. She looked ready to kill and people skittered out of her path. She blinked back the burning in her eyes. She took one look at her downcast crew and knew the news wasn’t good. What now she demanded of herself. How the hell had she let them fail, she couldn’t stop from blaming herself. Anger lit it’s way along her skin like an electrical current, an irrational need to destroy that she struggled to control. Although the bar was at capacity, standing room only, the deadly mood she brought to their table seemed to repel the boozy crush of the other patrons. THREE tossed back a shot and slammed the glass down daring the plastocast cup to shatter. FIVE could read the bad news in TWO’s mood. She quietly rubbed at the disappointment causing her eyes to tear. The Android wisely remained silent about the astronomically impossible odds of catching a lead on ONE now. 

It was an hour after quitting time for the station’s main shift and everyone seemed to be out looking for diversions. Somewhere a news feed competed with the thumping base of a local band. “So what now?” FOUR asked.  
“Gas up the Raza and we hit the next port.” THREE answered.   
FOUR looked at TWO with doubt. THREE caught the look and growled, “We don’t give up!”   
TWO frowned. She hadn’t voiced her concerns, but they needed to consider the possibility that she had lost ONE. THREE stared at her in disbelief. “We don’t give up!” he insisted. Considering the number of dead soldiers in front of him, THREE threw a remarkably steady hand out to grasp FOUR’s shirt. “That’s not what we do.” He insisted. FOUR pushed THREE off and the two of them stood like snarling dogs spoiling for a fight.  
Suddenly FIVE gasped. Practically jumping onto the table she pointed over TWO’s shoulder at a wall monitor transmitting the news. A cluster had gathered in front and the bar tender was turning the volume up. A blond anchor woman with mild cheek implants stood in front of a large crowd milling in front of a sleek planet side medical building. 

... Jessica Lane, on location at Blaine Memorial Trauma unit where just moments ago, InterColactic CEO, Jacob Moss’s ONLY son, Derrick Moss was admitted for multiple gunshot injuries. Details are still unclear, but authorities have made an arrest… 

TWO shoved her way through the crowd to hear the report over the din. 

…Jamie Cort was here as a member of the Ameritas-Gorm delegation. Sources say Cort is a relation to the Moss family but lead investigators were unavailable to comment. Business insiders speculate what this could mean for the impending merger...

The screen showed an earlier clip of a jostled camera pointed at an EMT team trying to push their way through a crowd of media to get to the hospital door. TWO didn’t recognize the face beneath the oxygen mask. His chest was buried beneath blood stained compression bandaging. “That’s him,” FOUR supplied. “It’s what he looked like on the other side of our transfer transit trip, that time you sent he and I after SIX.” 

 

…Corporate darling and Galactic philanthropist, Derrick Moss, most recently noted for his mysterious disappearance seven years ago, after a tragic B and E that claimed the lives of his two unborn children, was recently reunited with his father. Derrick Moss’s public appearance rocked the stock exchange, discounting rumors that Intercolactic was moving to liquidate his holdings after having the younger Moss legally declared dead. 

A heavily muscled spacer gave TWO an appreciative leer and slung his arm around her as she passed. “Hey sweet thi…” TWO put him on his ass without breaking her stride.

 

…Mr Moss and his daughter in law, Catherine were seen entering the hospital premises. The hospital has listed Derrick Moss’s condition as critical and our hopes and prayers go out to family at this difficult time. Now, back to you Jim… 

“OK,” TWO said turning away from the screen. She ignored the indignant squawking from the locals struggling to help their rejected friend off the ground. Alcohol thinned the group’s restraint and once they gained their feet, the mass lunged. TWO side stepped and THREE managed to pull his drink to safety as the freight train passed to cut a swath down the bar.   
THREE took a swig, watching people collide. A brawl erupted like wild fire. “So, the wife drops millions just so she could clone him and shoot him?” THREE huffed. “and I thought he got on MY nerves...” THREE dodged an errant punch, swung the man about and kicked him back into the rapidly expanding melee.   
FOUR shook his head and pushed FIVE back into a defensible corner. “Transfer transit isn’t a clone or a copy. It’s a biometric manifestation.” He pulled FIVE down as a bottle sailed past her head. Relieving a brawler of his pool stick, FOUR swung it like a weapon dropping three bodies to the sticky floor.  
Cracking his beer bottle across someone’s jaw, THREE turned a bemused look at FOUR. “Alright Einstein, what’s the difference?”  
FIVE chimed in from her refuge under the bar counter, “The Transfer Transit body is connected to the original.” She peered past FOUR to see if TWO was listening. “The bio matter print operates off a transmission of biorhythm and brainwaves.”  
“What, like a puppet?” THREE voiced.  
FIVE shrugged and studied the odd assortment of gum colors that had colonized the underside of the bar ledge, “I guess, but the sensory circuits in the transfer transit feel real. So getting shot…”  
FOUR stumbled back against the bar rail. A triple sized cargo loader smothering him in sweaty cleavage as she struggled to get a grip on his pool stick. The Android grabbed the woman by the scruff of her neck and sent her weight into the lines of bottles behind the bar tender. With a curt nod of thanks, FOUR added “There are safeguards built in to prevent death.” He had actually read the liability forms he had signed when using the technology to go after SIX.  
The Android looked pleased with herself, with a nod she stood beside the bar where FIVE hid. “Transfer transit technology is protected under several galactic patents, but two years ago a group of hackers, who still remain unidentified, under the name of John Doe breached the firewall at Omedge, a tier 5 data farm for a period of 34.5 seconds…”  
“OK, we get it! You know stuff.” THREE interrupted. He caught a right hook to his jaw. TWO grabbed the extended fist and snapped the elbow. The owner howled and stumbled back into the chaos. “Get to the point,” THREE shot over his shoulder.   
The Android blinked and reset her reporting parameters. “A set of unverified schematics would indicate that the transfer transit system can only limit the impact of a fatal transfer event.” FOUR’s pool cue shattered across a cranium. The Android reached over the bar and plucked a solid looking liqueur bottle, placing it helpfully into FOUR’s open palm. “Research studies into impacts of transfer transit trauma have reached inconclusive results and all legal complaints filed against the company have been settled privately out of court.” TWO frowned, the bar was overrun, and they needed to move this conversation elsewhere, before the GA showed up.  
“All that, just to tell us that getting killed is gonna screw up his head?” THREE growled, dodging an airborne bar stool. “How the hell is that helpful?” The Android looked nonplussed back at THREE. “A transmission is something that could be tracked,” FIVE piped in. “Sector ONE just went on lockdown. I estimate 6.2 seconds until security personnel arrive to suppress this disturbance.” The android informed.  
“Time to go!” TWO barked pointing at the staff only door behind the bar. “Ok, slightly helpful,” THREE grumbled as he overturned the nearest table, clearing enough real estate for FIVE to crawl out from under the bar. The Android bound over the bar from a stand still like some modern take on Steve Austin. TWO handed FIVE over to her. THREE and FOUR cleared their rear.  
The dish staff had already vacated the kitchen. TWO pushed through the back access door and backpedaled at the amber flash of GA port response vehicles. Slamming the door she turned, “Time to get creative.” FIVE pointed at the dumpster chute.   
“I’m not getting in there,” THREE declared. “Don’t be a baby,” TWO answered climbing in after FIVE. The Android followed without complaint. FOUR didn’t seem fazed but THREE slide down voicing his displeasure.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I love how the bar fight scene came together with the group conversation. I originally wrote it as a conversation in the bar, a bar fight scene and a news report. But I wasn't a fan of how the timeline of the plat seemed to jump forward and back when these scenes were strung together. That's when I realized they were parallel on the plot time line and would all need to be combined. I thought it would be a total disaster, but what do you know... i think it worked out rather well :)


	9. Chapter 9

Jacob desperately returned his son’s white knuckled grip. The ER was a war zone of chaotic desperation. A crushing din of mechanical alarms, shouting, and movement, there was nothing calming or comforting about the uncanny synchronization of all the moving parts. The ruins of Derrick’s clothes fluttered in the passing of nurses and technicians. Like blood stained banners, they hung in strips from where they had been cut from his skin. Catherine and the head surgeon were screaming at each other. The anesthesiologist stood immobilized by the threat of litigation. The centerpiece to the madness was the weak flutter of the wounded, Jacob’s son. The damaged body stripped bare for access. 

Pain left ONE panting. He squinted against the blinding power of surgical theater lamps. Vertigo hamstrung his ability to place himself, place his surroundings. Hands pinched and pushed like he was a lot at an auction. He floundered trying to feel his way past the weight crushing the breath from his chest. Far away, he could just make out the feel of someone holding tightly to his hand. “TWO?” Rose tinged froth bubbled over his lip, but he didn’t dare release his tether to wipe his chin clean. 

“Security!” the surgeon demanded. The crack of Catherine’s palm across the surgeon’s cheek caught Jacob’s attention.   
“If you put him under,” Catherine threatened, “I’ll make sure you never legally work another day in your life!”   
“Get the hell out of the way and let me save this man’s life!” the doctor charged. She wasn’t fazed by Catherine’s extra height or her leadership role on the hospital’s board of directors. An Irish fire sparked in her dark eyes.   
Catherine wanted to strangle the woman. “You’re not listening. He’s in transfer transit. There is no danger of dying.”  
“Then end transmission,” The surgeon blasted back. “This kind of trauma without necessity is inhumane.”  
“Catherine,” Jacob commanded attention, “If you can end his suffering what are you waiting for?”  
Catherine turned an exasperated look at her father in law. “He’ll be fine, I should know. He’s here to prove to the corporation that he is still alive. The last thing we need is to open ourselves up to more questions about his viability.” Catherine gestured towards the outside, “Those cameras out there need footage of him leaving this hospital alive.” Catherine turned back to the surgeon. “Get him on his feet or I’ll have security escort you off the premises.”   
Jacob let go of Derrick’s hand and dragged Catherine to the side. “This is not fine,” he accused. “This is cruel.”  
Catherine rolled her eyes. “We are going to have this conversation now?” she asked in disbelief.   
“Look at him. How can you stand by watching?” Jacob demanded. “Terminate the transmission.   
“No,” Catherine answered looking Jacob in the eye, “You always say the needs of the individual are nothing to the needs of the whole. Nothing has changed.”  
“You have changed and I was wrong,” Jacob admitted. “This is our chance to get this right.”  
Catherine bit back a bitter laugh, “Sometimes you are as naïve as he is. Derrick did everything scientifically possible to stop being your son.” She thought of the complete stranger she had been presented to in the med bay of the Galactic authority’s ship. “You wouldn’t even recognize the real him if you sat beside him on a transport train for a full week.” Nothing about the way ONE held himself or his role as a crew member of the Raza had any similarities to how Derrick Moss conducted himself. “If he could have altered his DNA I don’t doubt that he would have, just to sever the last tie. You lost your son.” Catherine waved her hand towards the flesh twitching beneath the ER team’s triage. “This is just fantasy.”  
Jacob was livid. He trembled with the effort not to lash out. “Stop blaming me for your guilt. I didn’t make you do it.”  
Catherine shook her head, “I did everything you ever asked. Your condemnation was enough.”  
Jacob shut his mouth and turned away. Catherine was incapable of accepting fault, always the victim, too myopic to act on the behalf of another entity. In his heart, Jacob knew she was right. He had been the one to find Catherine. He had groomed her to be Derrick’s perfect match, been the force that pushed his son to fall in love with a woman incapable of loving anyone above herself. He had done it out of love. It was a father’s job to remake the world into a place that would protect and ensure his child’s success. Derrick had made it easy; so trusting, so eager to see the good in people. Ultimately, it had been Jacob who had destroyed the mirage. But who could blame him? He couldn’t un-see the discrepancy between his son’s authenticity and the one dimensional facades he had surrounded Derrick with. Catherine’s pregnancy had been the final straw. Jacob hadn’t been able to accept Derrick’s decision to forgive an unfaithful wife or raise another man’s children. Jacob had confronted his son, but Derrick knew the circumstances and remained firm in his decision. Catherine had always been Jacob’s man and it only took his word for her to disregard her husband’s wishes. She wasn’t the first wealthy woman to use the transfer transit technology to abort an unwanted pregnancy. The move had ultimately saved her life, ironically making Catherine more loyal to Jacob and the corporation.   
But none of them had been prepared for the brutal retribution of Jacob’s rival losing the vote for the open chair on the board. Derrick had been made to pay in blood and days later when Catherine was returned to her grieving husband, Derrick was too intelligent not to deduce why Catherine had been in a transfer transit state, turning what should have been a bittersweet reunion into a moment of ultimate betrayal. Jacob shook his head in remorse. Catherine may be right about losing his son. But she hadn’t returned fine from the premature termination of the transfer transit session and experience made him worried about the affect on Derrick.

VVVVV

FIVE carefully wound a wire around the base of a screw mount to ensure a solid connection then reached for her screw driver. Her fingers groped over empty table and she frowned at having to take her attention off the device she was building. She lifted sheets of metal and shuffled through jars of screws searching without luck. TWO plucked the screwdriver that THREE was twirling between his fingers and handed it to FIVE. THREE frowned, “So how is this supposed to work?”   
They had made it back to the Raza without incident. The smell from their detour through garbage reclamation had moved people out of their path. FIVE had come up with a viable plan to find ONE, but showers were the first order of business. FOUR walked into the command center, water still dripping from his hair. He hesitated, detecting an underlying sour yeasty smell. Slowly he sniffed himself but couldn’t pinpoint the origin. He moved to a far wall and rubbed a towel through his hair. “I’m reprogramming this sensor to detect data streams using the transfer transit codec.” THREE chirped eagerly. “Then we’ll use the Meikke fleet network to amplify our reach to pinpoint transmissions coming out of the hospital that news woman is camped out at. We follow that streaming connection back to where ONE is.”   
TWO glanced at the muted news feed projected on a background screen. They were relying on the feed to alert them if Derrick Moss was moved. The Android stood at attention in her usual central spot concentrating on writing an app to amplify the connection between the Raza and the bug planted on the docked Meikke cruiser. THREE paced past the android and wrinkled his nose. “Can we get the robot one of those air freshener trees or something?” he complained.  
The Android answered, “Nanite exterior cleaning is at 87%. My sensors detect that a high percentage of the smell you are objecting to is emitting from your holster and fire arms.”  
THREE scowled and checked to see if anyone was watching him before pulling his pistol from it’s holster for a sniff. He threw his head back at the attack on his nose. He looked up and caught TWO turn to the news on the monitor to hide her amusement. He turned and found FOUR looking back at him with a suspiciously blank expression. “My guns don’t stink,” he grumbled grabbing a rag and sitting down to clean the pistol.   
Activity in the news feed brought TWO to her feet. “How much longer?” She asked over her shoulder. Security around the hospital entrance had increased and the on location reporter had perked up. “Almost done,” FIVE muttered. She chewed at her lip in concentration. FIVE slid out of her chair to crawl beneath the communications consol. TWO watched a sleek white luxury transporter slide into the patient discharge bay. After a few moments the glass entrance slid open to emit another cadre of security muscle. “We’ve got action at the hospital,” TWO warned. “We are running out of time.” FOUR joined TWO in front of the news stream. The watched the crowd mill in excitement.  
“OK,” FIVE called out from under the communications console. Her teal head popped up like a prairie dog glancing at the Android.  
“Calibrating,” the android awknowledged.  
Catherine Moss, wearing a radiant smile, emerged pushing an occupied wheel chair. Jacob Moss flanked her side. The trio pushed through the crowd. The shot cut to a different reporter hanging over the armored shoulder of security shouting for an interview. That’s it, stall them, TWO quietly urged. TWO studied Jacob Moss’s look of disapproval when Catherine stopped to grant the reporter an audience. Derrick Moss didn’t do anything for TWO. He didn’t have ONE’s striking dark looks, instead he gave the wholesome impression of a pressed and polished corporate political candidate. At Catherine’s insistence Derrick pushed to his feet to wave at the camera. The trio repeatedly insisted that the extent of Derrick’s injury had been blown out of proportion. But their body language conveyed a different message and TWO didn’t care for the glassy, heavily lidded look to the guy’s eyes. “Looks like they are getting ready to move.” TWO warned.  
“I think it’s working.” FIVE said staring at a flood of data streaming across the console readout.  
“So you have a position?” TWO asked.   
FIVE fidgeted beneath everyone’s attention. She glanced at the android before looking back at the data. “Well,” she hedged, “I have a lot of data.” She pointed out a section to the android. “What about that one?” On the news broadcast the Moss family moved towards the waiting transport. “Yeah,” FIVE got excited. “That inscription tag is definitely transfer transit.” TWO abandoned the news to join FIVE at the console. FIVE pointed out one string out of dozens. “How long to trace this back to its’ origin?” TWO asked.

VVVVV

ONE locked his jaw. You can do this he urged himself. He could see the transporter a few dozen feet away. Just a little farther he stalled as each breath pushed him closer to the edge of consciousness. Every shift of the wheel chair rattled his resolve sending tremors through the drugged haze holding back the towering waves of pain. Jacob’s heavy hand kept him pinned upright against the back of the chair. ONE struggled to keep his eyes open and his face blank; completely numb to the crush of people surrounding him. Don’t stop, he nagged as the chair came to a stop and he was faced with the chasm between himself and the plush leather padding offering asylum inside the transport. Jacob’s strength helped him free of the wheel chair’s gravital force and ONE stumbled a step before sinking onto the wide bench seat spanning the interior cabin.   
Catherine quickly shut the door and programmed their destination. Jacob sat across from his pale son. His own body trembled from the strain of the last five hours. He could only imagine the nightmare Derrick was caught in. The transport slid away from the hospital and Catherine turned to the wet bar. She poured a finger of brandy into a tumbler and turned to help Derrick drink. 

ONE waved the offering away. A mix of vertigo and pain had his stomach twisted, threatening mutiny. Despite her repeated attempts, ONE refused the drink.   
“I’ll take it,” Jacob offered reaching his hand out.   
With a huff Catherine ignored Jacob and dumped the liquid down the drain. Without a word she turned back to her husband, helping him lay flat, reaching for a pillow for his head.   
“Fine,” Jacob sighed and eased back into the deep bucket seat.   
ONE managed a tired smile in appreciation of Catherine’s effort as she hovered over him with the pillow gripped tightly in her fists. Without a word Catherine shoved the pillow over his face. She threw her weight behind it, wedging her knee beneath his chin and leaning into the column of his neck.   
Jacob stared in disbelief. ONE thrashed, survival instincts aggravating his injuries, sending the metal slugs left nuzzled beside his internal organs burrowing deeper. The pillow dropped revealing his panic stricken eyes. Catherine pressed the remaining corner tighter against the cartilage of his nose and the crush of his lips.  
Jacob’s struggle out of his seat mimicked ONE’s; flailing arms and weakened effort. He threw his weight against his daughter in law trying to dislodge her killing grip just as the body beneath her burst into blackened dust.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, was the death scene too quick or effectively shocking and brutally fast?


	10. Chapter 10

FIVE rewound the data stream and played it again, watching for the moment ONE’s transmission abruptly vanished. She paused it, staring at the loss. Then she rewound and watched it again. She sat alone on the command deck, tear tracks reflecting the light of the Raza’s communications monitor. The others had left to deal with their grief in other ways. The Android stood behind her on a power saver mode; recalibrating the thousands of systems still underperforming from the encounter with the Galactic Authority. The lights had cycled low at FIVE’s inaction. She lay against the console deck replaying the moment they had lost ONE’s transmission. One moment it was there, then too soon to trace, it was gone. FOUR had left for the weapons room without a word. THREE had used language that had colored FIVE’s face in shock before heading down to a cargo bay to break something. TWO had just stood there staring out at the lights of space, completely silent. FIVE had desperately tried to get the transmission back; amped the connection until they blew a fuse, decrypted all the transmission feeds within the geolocation the transfer transit transmission had been aimed at… Finally TWO had turned and hugged FIVE close. “It’s not your fault. We’ll win the next one.”   
FIVE wanted to protest. The odds of another public appearance after an attempt on Derrick’s life… The odds that they would catch the transmission… The odds that the next PR event would come before they had turned ONE into Derrick Moss… but she kept her mouth shut, and TWO silently walked off the bridge. This had been their chance, FIVE felt it in her chest. She brushed the salt from her cheek and pecked at the console. Maybe if she could just understand why she had lost the transmission, maybe that would help.  
FIVE sat up. Choosing an IP address and credential string based on proximity to ONE’s lost transmission, she punched in a connection. The console on the wall resolved to a harassed looking woman juggling paper readouts. FIVE watched her drop below the desk to retrieve a fly away. As she climbed back into her seat she froze, staring owlishly at FIVE. “Um,” she mumbled pecking at the readouts on the monitor confused to be staring at a blue haired youth. “This is a secure line. How did you…”  
“Do you know Derrick Moss?” FIVE blurted. The woman squinted at her. “The missing CEO?” she asked, “Is this some kind of prank…” FIVE cut the connection. “Not that one,” FIVE conversed with herself. She marked the transmission and chose another. 

VVVV

A hired gun PR rep was pitching just the right blend of bright side, by your side all the way platitudes dictated by crisis response custom. “… it’s important for us to stand united. Ameritas-Gorm does not condone this type of terrorism. We won’t let this influence the partnership we are striving to establish and sincerely offer our support in addressing the situation.” 

Jacob nodded. He was only half listening. Accepting the PR posturing of Intercolactic’s allies and rivals was a formality he had learned to endure. This wasn’t his first rodeo and the heavily structured art form did little to distract him from dwelling on the physical act of Catherine crushing the breath from his son. Sensing that he needed space, she had gone home to change. The blackened bio matter, a byproduct of a premature Transfer Transit termination had clung like soot to her white designer suite. Jacob rubbed his palm against his thigh. It was likely all in his head, but he couldn’t get beyond the feeling of the dust clinging to the crevices of his fingers. He had to remind himself that Derrick was not dead, but there was a difference between knowing something and feeling it. And he felt terrified and alone. He ended the call with a sense of relief. He sagged back into his chair, a rare occasion in which he felt his advanced age.   
Mac, his synthetic handed him a bottle of water. “Sir, there’s a transmission from the Meikke Combine trying to connect. Shall I reroute them?”  
Jacob took a deep drink and recapped the bottle. “No,” he directed. “It’s better for me to keep busy.” He dreaded facing his empty penthouse and the seven hours of dead air until the work day could evolve something new to distract him again. He needed to speak to Derrick, hear his voice and start actually believing that his son was indeed ok, but Dr Hemb wasn’t taking calls at the moment. Jacob ran his fingers through the silver of his mane. He needed to find a way to get Derrick free butt he was to in too deep to see any light. He nodded the go ahead to Mac. Better to be numb, an automatron, than without hope, Jacob reasoned.

The screen coalesced into a teen with curls the blue of tropical plumage. She blinked tiredly at him a few moments before her eyes rounded with amazement. “Jacob Moss,” she gasped. ‘You’re Jacob Moss!”   
Jacob’s puzzled expression held a hint of amusement. “Yes, I believe I am. Who were you expecting?”  
She shook her head excitedly, “Um, I dunno. But this is so great! I need to talk to ONE,” She hesitated as if realizing what she just said wouldn’t make sense. “I mean, I need to talk to…” it took her an extra second to recall the name she was looking for, “Derrick.”  
Jacob frowned, “That won’t be possible.” FIVE watched his body language shift from curios to guarded, “Do you realize how much trouble you could be in using a private corporate line to invade people’s lives?”  
Realizing she had miss stepped FIVE jumped in her seat, throwing her arm out as if to stop him. “Wait, no. I…” a brilliant smile lit up her face. “I can’t believe this worked!” A sound off screen caught her attention.  
“This isn’t funny, I’m in no mood for games, girl. Where are your parents?” Jacob said climbing to his feet. 

A dark beauty stepped into view. Her wide stance telegraphed an impression of command and control. Her eyes were all business beneath the lush sweep of her lashes. The guns strapped to her thighs whispered of deadly competence. They considered each other, like opponents in a ring. Jacob broke the standoff, “I don’t think I’ve had the pleasure.”  
“Pray you never will,” TWO responded. She watched him swallow reflexively. “You are in breach of a good faith clause in contract.” TWO accused him.  
Jacob slowly released a breath. He felt at a disadvantage, like he had stumbled onto something dangerous because he didn’t understand it. The woman was formidable enough to have him acting like a junior exec. High level this, he counselled himself. “We do quite a bit of business and I’m not familiar with the contract you are referencing. Could you be more specific?” Jacob preferred to do business honestly and had built his success by being genuine when possible.   
TWO recognized the rare quality, a corporate executive that had made the climb without losing the ability to admit when they didn’t know something. She stepped forward, “I’ll spare you my complaints on your organization’s negotiating practices. I lent Catherine Moss one of my crew members so she could prove Derrick Moss was still alive. But evidence of your inability to keep him in good health is trending on galactic news outlets.” Two crossed her arms, “I expect him returned home immediately.”  
She was talking about Derrick. For a moment Jacob failed to process the idea that Derrick might have a home other than Intercolactic. The teenager was fairly beaming with pride and affection. Evidence that this commander looked out for her own and she counted his son among them. An idea started to take form. He sat down and looked at the woman with new intent. “Catherine mentioned the Raza, I’m familiar with the reputation. How do you rationalize that to be safe?” he slipped naturally into the role of overprotective parent.   
He had never trusted Derrick to make his own choices. Catherine was the result of Jacob believing she had the competitive steel and business acumen to fill a lack he thought Derrick was limited by. Ironically, it was Jacob’s lack that had been the problem. His inability to let Derrick make his own decisions, learn from his own mistakes. On the surface, the Raza looked like a mistake. It made Jacob wonder if this was a test of fate; the real opportunity to regain his son by letting him make a choice Jacob didn’t understand. If he genuinely loved his son above anything else, the answer might be to let him go.   
He shook his head, he hadn’t heard TWO’s answer. “I’ve failed him. His family failed him,” Jacob muttered. “How do you expect to do any better?” Jacob squinted at the commander. She wasn’t Catherine, that was a good start. His gut said to trust her. He turned to consult his data pad. “I’m sending you the routing number to the Purveyor. I don’t trust Dr Hemb. He’s a corrosive influence and he isn’t responding to attempts to contact him. Will you have Derrick call me once you have him?”   
TWO killed the connection before she could lay into the old man for allowing any of this to happen. It was obvious the father loved his son, but that didn’t excuse his role in taking something of hers. She scrambled the Raza; they had a solid lead. Fate owed them a win this time and TWO had every intention of collecting. 

VVVV

Breeching the Purveyor had been straightforward. The had used brute force to punch their own entrance, ensuring the Raza would be the only space worthy vessel once they had detached. The had left FIVE and the Android on board to watch the horizons for party crashers. After dispatching the 2 bot welcoming committee they had split to hit the bridge, the med bay, and the armory detected off the crew’s quarters. 

THREE flanked the doorway into the Purveyor’s medical bay, pushing his shoulder blades into the metal casing. He checked the charge on Lucille and Ricky, a matched pair of sleek heat pulse hand guns. Crossing the guns to his chest, THREE took a deep breath and cleared his head. With a nod, he spun around the jamb and swept the room. Each hand worked independently to target and dismiss the lights and movement of the medical display units quickly zeroing in on the form of a synth standing beside the rounded canopy of some type of enclosed bed. “Great, another robot,” he muttered to himself. Without hesitation he emptied both clips into it’s chest. The figure dropped to the floor panel with a heavy clang. A ribbon of smoke dancing from it’s slumped form.   
“Not bad,” THREE smiled complimenting himself. Swiveling to track every corner, he backed up to the container bed. He holstered Ricky and tugged at the lid. It opened with a hiss, the penetrating blue interior making ONE’s still form look like it was made of ice. “C’mon Princess, wakey wakey!” THREE crooned. When ONE didn’t respond THREE gave the room a final sweep before turning to shake ONE’s bare shoulder. “This may be a rescue, but I ain’t going to carry your ass.” ONE still didn’t respond and THREE frowned at the locked tense of the muscle beneath his grip. THREE reached over to peel back ONE’s eyelid. The black of the pupil was blown wide and completely unresponsive to the light. THREE pulled back and frowned at the cording in ONE’s neck and the rigid set of his jaw. There was nothing peaceful about how ONE was laid out. “Damn it, you don’t do anything easy.” THREE muttered. THREE cursed and hopped up onto the bed   
The goose flesh at the base of THREE’s skull prickled, warning him to drop as a synthetic arm buried itself into the transfer transit unit’s lid. THREE threw his arm up against the sparks gushing from the puncture and mule kicked the synthe’s joint bending the mobility gears. Bringing Lucille up THREE drained the clip point blank into the robot’s optical port. Steel dug into THREE’s shoulder and jerked him backward off the table and into an adjacent wall. The robot detached it’s damaged limb like a lizard tail and lunged at THREE. 

THREE rolled as a mech filled boot pounded a dent into the floor grating. Ducking a lethal swing THREE jack rabbited back from the bot’s onslaught. Dodging, weaving, until a jackhammer blow rattled the cage around his heart. The gyros on the room seemed to swing and THREE plowed shoulder first into a bulkhead of surgical tools. A manacle wrapped around his ankle and jerked his body clear of the avalanche of sharpened stainless steel.   
The synth’s fingers dug around THREE’s windpipe. It leaned forward, it’s toothy leer dripping some type of milky lubricant across THREE’s lips. THREE thrashed. As the black of space threatened to swallow his vision, THREE yanked a scalpel embedded in his calf and slammed it home in the memory port on the robot’s neck. The effect was nuclear. Electricity arced beneath it’s skin, illuminating it’s internal support structures and blowing fuses like line charges in a controlled demolition. THREE scrambled clear as the robot seized. “Ever heard of personal space?” he growled scrubbing his jacket sleeve across his mouth to remove the bitter tasting liquid. He rummaged through some drawers until he found bandages and liberally applied butterflies across any cut longer than his fingernail. The synth had done a number on the electronics of the room. Lights flickered, readouts wailed, and sparks dripped like water onto the floor. An acrid smell hinted at unseen damage burning behind the paneling. Time to move.  
THREE limped back to the damaged husk of the transfer transit bed. ONE hadn’t moved. “Some prize,” THREE muttered. He hooked ONE’s arm to pull him into a fireman’s carry.   
ONE exploded at the contact. With desperate speed he pulled THREE’s gun and swung THREE off kilter onto the cracked plastic sheeting of the bed. THREE’s temp fell sub zero at the look in ONE’s eyes. He looked feral beneath the spasms of the med bay’s shorting lights. Void of emotion. His eyes eerily reflecting the light like something unholy. THREE got a fist on the pistol’s barrel, quivering with the effort to slow the muzzle from kissing the underside of his jaw. The heat of Lucille’s muzzle burning a mark over the flutter of his own pulse. “ONE!” THREE yelled past his clenched jaw. “It’s me.” Beneath his grip, THREE felt the flex of ONE’s finger against the trigger. “It’s THREE!” THREE yelled expecting to get blown away with that breath.   
But the moment froze, ONE froze. Something flickered, ONE blinked and THREE watched as fate seemed to weigh his worth. Damn it, he should have worn underwear without holes.  
With a sharp exhale, ONE jerked back. THREE followed struggling to keep his dual ownership of the gun. He hung on, completely unprepared as Lucille’s deadly attention was pulled back to strike a killing blow to a new target. Three stumbled over his own feet to follow the weapon as it jumped from his throat to ONE’s. There was no hesitation, no opposing force to slow the muzzle as it nuzzled beneath ONE’s chin. THREE fell to his knees, his weight spinning ONE as the gun discharged. They fell in a heap, THREE lay stunned, his breath knocked from him. ONE wasn’t moving beside him. THREE jerked on the gun and it came away from ONE’s limp grip. “No,” THREE begged. The sight of red beading against ONE’s jaw line shot him into action.   
THREE straddled ONE’s chest and twisted his neck to get a look at the damage. A close call, the graze ran a cauterized groove just past his artery up into the hair line of the nape of his neck. THREE could feel ONE’s chest rise and fall beneath him. It gave THREE the courage to let go when ONE slapped THREE’s hand from his face. “Get off!” ONE ordered in a voice rough from disuse. THREE got to his feet and watched ONE attempt elevation before collapsing back to his knees. THREE identified first aid supplies and dumped the whole bin out over ONE’s head. Too busy dealing with a bout of vertigo, ONE didn’t react. Shrugging out of his jacket, THREE manhandled ONE into it, pretending not to notice ONE’s trembling. Grabbing the lapel, THREE hauled ONE to his feet and slammed him back against a wall. “Don’t ever try that again!” THREE threatened. He thumped him again for emphasis before grabbing a roll of gauze to bandage the neck wound. ONE put up with the attention without comment. Finally satisfied, THREE stepped back and tossed a set of medical scrubs at ONE. “Let’s go.” THREE waited unwilling to trust ONE to follow directions on his own. 

VVVV

TWO broke her team’s radio silence, “Meet me in the main cabin on level B. I have Dr. Hemb.” A synthetic form lay dispatched in the corner of the room. Dr Hemb lounged on a bench, pinned in place by TWO’s gun. A large bed held the center of the room. TWO averted her curiosity from the body cuffed to the headboard. She didn’t trust the DR enough to divide her attention. THREE and FOUR would arrive soon enough. 

Dr Hemb casually studied her. With a self deprecating chuckle, he purred, “You are something special.” He reached out to trace her lines in the air, “I feel like a John Hughs lead who just noticed the beauty next door.” His eyes tracked to the synth she had sidelined in three brutal moves. She couldn’t be human, but he wasn’t sure she realized it. Escape was the last thing on his mind, he itched to dig elbows deep into the mystery standing before him. Physically, he was no match so he began mapping alternative approaches.

Katana drawn, FOUR arrived first. His eyes flicked across the scene around TWO quickly taking the situation in. TWO nodded to the bed and stepped to the far wall to improve her sight line coverage of the door, Dr Hemb, and the bed. The heavily blindfolded face of the man tied to the bed rolled to track FOUR’s silent approach. Intuition warned FOUR that there was something familiar about the stranger. With a flick of his blade, the blindfold fell away leaving FOUR face to face with Derrick Moss. 

Derrick flinched away from the sudden light. “FOUR?” Derrick croaked. The voice was all wrong, wreaked from overuse. FOUR stepped back as Derrick strained against his restraints. “What’s wrong?” he asked with alarm, catching FOUR’s hesitance. Derrick squinted across the room taking in TWO and Dr Hemb. TWO felt uncomfortable meeting his pale eyes. She only recognized him from the video feed footage. “What is it?” Derrick demanded turning back to FOUR. FOUR ignored the questions and studied the strange abrasions running tracks down Derrick’s sides; the crimson flecks distressing the cuffs on Derrick’s wrists. FOUR raised a brow in silent question to TWO. 

THREE strode into the room interrupting the nonverbal conversation. He pulled Bubba off his back and dropped the muzzle to the floor plate to lean against, his calf was killing him and he tried not to think about the possibility that a piece of the scalpel had stayed lodged in his muscle. “Well, ain’t this a cozy nest. Did I interrupt something?” He stared blankly at Derrick, unable to place where he had seen the guy before. He checked his six and spun in panic the moment it took to relocate ONE standing back in the shadow of the entrance. The guy was acting seriously spooky, THREE thought to himself.  
ONE stepped silently from the doorway. Dressed in THREE’s leather jacket with a pair of pale surgical scrub pants slung low on his hip, ONE looked like a refugee. He didn’t acknowledge any from the Raza, his attention fixated on the body on the bed. TWO frowned, ONE moved like a ghost ship, silent intention leaking emotional radiation in it’s wake. He hadn’t said a word, that alone set off alarms. But it was him, she felt the same unexplainable draw she had tried to deny since the moment they had woken without names.   
Derrick stared at ONE in horror. “What is this?” he forced out from bloodless lips. He shifted back as far as the restraints would allow. He was staring at himself. This couldn’t be real. “Wake up, wake up, wake up,” Derrick panted thumping his head back against the top beam of the headboard. THREE sent TWO a worried look as ONE stepped up beside him. “Some nightmares are real,” ONE answered. The moment held it’s breath. “Who are you?” Derrick asked. The tension in the air made each word drop harshly. Lightning quick, ONE whipped THREE’s pistol from his hip, aimed and *CRACK*… 

FOUR recoiled as the figure on the bed burst into a shower of black.

THREE jumped to regain his gun before ONE could do more. Twisting Lucille free, THREE slammed a right hook into ONE’s jaw. ONE stumbled but otherwise didn’t react. Blood pinked the bandaging on his neck. “MY GUNS!” THREE spit. He grabbed ONE by the lapel and shook him. “Keep your hands off MY GUNS!” He shoved ONE away and backed a safe distance to stand beside TWO; too disturbed to believe ONE was done with this self destructive streak he had picked up.

Dr Hemb collapsed in laughter. Palming his face, his pink tongue darted out to sample the tears of his delight. “That’s one I never even imagined,” he cheered. He stood and stepped toward ONE, arms held wide. FOUR intervened. Dr Hemb hesitated, catching his reflection in FOUR’s blade. Raising his hands in surrender Dr Hemb retook his seat. “Encore?” he asked casting a feverish look between the reunited members of the Raza.


	11. Chapter 11

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Guess what sci fi movie I was channeling with this chapter? :)

“Three’s a charm,” THREE announced dropping his end of a huge metal crate with a loud clang. He watched ONE stumble and collapse against the other end as the crate’s full weight forced the other end to the grating of the Raza’s cargo bay. THREE rolled his shoulders, testing a strain with a soft grunt. Briefly he considered ending the one-upmanship game he was playing ONE, but – NAH, that sounded too much like losing. It didn’t matter that THREE couldn’t even tell if ONE had registered the ploy, it still sounded like losing. If he just hung in there, ONE was bound to puss out with a complaint sooner than later. Trouble was, ONE wasn’t exactly acting like himself. Other than the nightmare comment delivered before blasting his Derrick Moss reincarnation point blank in the face, the guy had been disturbingly non-verbal. THREE ran his knuckles across the muzzle burn beneath his jaw and reasoned things could have turned out worse. Without a word ONE sagged against the crate, lost in his own head. That was A OK since THREE wasn’t exactly eager to find the next “heavier item” to salvage from the Purveyor. He wasn’t quite sure that weight would equate to resale value - something else he wasn’t about to admit to changing his mind on. While they were catching their breath, THREE decided to bring up something that had been rattling around his head. He leaned casually against the crate, waiting until ONE’s eyes flicked in his direction. “So, kids, huh?” THREE wouldn’t admit it aloud, but he found the concept of a few rug rats interesting. ONE bolted so fast THREE startled, his hands jumping to the pistol hilts at his hip.  
FOUR came through the airlock dragging a reluctant Dr Hemb into ONE’s path. The doctor suddenly surged forward, breaking from FOUR and driving ONE back into a support strut. In a flash, FOUR spun the doctor to the grating, his blade biting against the man’s Adam’s apple.  
“You salvage the mundane when the true riches are right there!” Dr Hemb growled in frustration.  
FOUR smiled deadly, “Wrong move.” He flexed.  
“STOP!” TWO barked charging into the cargo bay. “Calchek found a deep space expedition desperate for an MD skillset. We could use the funds and the less populated breathing space.” She came up on FOUR. With some difficulty, FOUR stepped back from the kill. But ONE surged to his feet and sent a kick into the doc’s ribcage before anyone could react. “Hey!” TWO yelled, grabbing ONE by the shoulders and getting in his face, “I said stop.” ONE tried to jerk away, but she grabbed him by the lapel and pulled him close. “Enough!” she yelled, giving him a shake until ONE stopped struggling. With a gentle touch she forced him to meet her eyes.   
“Hey, ease up on the jacket!” THREE interrupted. “He may be wearing it, but it’s mine.” TWO gave THREE a look to shut him up. “Take a moment and go get cleaned up,” TWO urged ONE. “We can handle detaching for the jump.” She studied his listing stance and struggled to keep her worry from showing. ONE nodded in acceptance.  
FIVE skipped from the Raza’s main corridor. “ONE!” she called dashing forward to wrap him in a hug. “We’re so glad you’re back,” She said. ONE gave her a quick return squeeze before stepping free with whispered thanks. FIVE smiled brilliantly, “Is that THREE’s jacket,” she asked.   
“You better not be trying to make off with my stuff,” THREE harped.  
ONE closed his eyes, his fists clenched. With an exhale, he shrugged the jacket off, revealing dark bruising tattooed across his back and slung the jacket into THREE’s chest. FIVE reached out with concern but ONE side stepped with a shake of his head. “It’s nothing,” He muttered disappearing past her.   
TWO forced her attention back to the task at hand, they were on a time table. “I didn’t do that,” THREE defended against her scowl while pulling his jacket on.   
“It’s trauma manifesting from the transit sessions,” Dr Hemb explained from his sprawled position on the deck. He turned his attention to TWO. “Pull a backup of my data. It’ll just take seconds to access one of my androids,” his eyes flicked back to where ONE had departed. “I’m not the only one who could benefit from my research.” He contended. “Secure the cargo,” TWO ordered, indicating Dr Hemb. She turned to FIVE. “If I bring one of those damaged androids on board, can you access the data?” FIVE nodded yes. “We’ll need to disable it’s ability to reactivate or transmit,” TWO muttered to herself, headed to the Purveyor for one last acquisition. 

VVVV

ONE watched his reflection in the mirror slowly calcify from the steam of the shower. He was having difficulty associating the image with himself. When he had woken without any recall of who he was, his reflection had been comforting, indisputable proof that he was someone, a solid lead to the value his identity offered. Now, it was a reminder of how the odds were stacked against him. It obscured more than it answered. This wasn’t like waking with amnesia. This time he had the impression that time had passed. Flashes would surface when he wasn’t prepared. Moments chronologically scrambled between the uncomfortably clear memory of strangers lay him out on a medical table in front of his fellow crew and… 

…and the point where the chaotic confusion suddenly snapped into clarity; his finger on a trigger pressed against the rough stubble of THREE’s throat.   
He shuddered, it had been close. Too close. Worse was that he couldn’t make sense of how he felt about the moment; relief… failure... resignation. His emotions swung wildly and he hoped this was the after effects of some type of pharmacological withdrawal. His emotions were pegged in the red and the extremes were wreaking havoc with his head, his sense of balance, his heartbeat. He felt like he was coming apart. FIVE’s hug had almost reduced him to tears and THREE’s harping on the jacket had almost come to blows. “Pull it together,” he demanded of himself.   
Being back on the Raza felt tenuous; he wasn’t Jace Corso, didn’t have that skillset and being Derrick Moss wasn’t an option either. So what did that leave him? What value did he offer? He doubted TWO would put up with deadweight for long. “You’ll find a way,” He whispered curling his fingers into his hair, “Something to contribute.”  
A sharp prick along his scalp caught his attention. He combed his fingers through his hair finding a pin sized sore as the source. A pimple? An ingrown hair? He groaned hadn’t he exceeded his quota for indignity. He worried it until it bled, but the plug at the center refused to give. Grabbing a set of tweezers he zeroed in and yanked. Pain wiped him out, felled him to the floor, left him for brain dead, his lungs seized. With numb fingers, ONE touched his scalp and felt something slither through his hair. With a startled cry he brushed frantically; a filament, slick with blood, curled around his fingers before dropping to the shower deck. It writhed like something alive, the water sluiced pink along it’s length.   
The current edged it toward the drain. ONE cursed, the Raza’s water system! HE floundered forward catching the tail end before it disappeared. The filament writhed back, piercing ONE’s palm. He backpedaled pulling down bottles and fixtures in his search for something to help.

VVVVV

THREE loitered outside ONE’s quarters staring daggers at the damaged control panel that refused to open the door. Sure, he had been the one to destroy it, but that was weeks ago when they had been under attack from a traitor within. Now he needed the damaged tech to work, he was debating a next move when he heard the muffled shout and a thump. A visual reminder of ONE turning Lucille back on himself sent THREE sprinting for a crowbar.  
THREE muscled the door halfway open and crashed into the bathroom, sending up a quick prayer that people be properly clothed. Still in the scrub pants, ONE was huddled beneath the shower’s spray struggling with his hand. The glint of silver brought THREE closer. He watched in revulsion as a thin wire emerged from the back of ONE’s hand and slithered back beneath the skin at his wrist. Grabbing a set of tweezers from the floor and a metal canister of cotton balls, THREE straddled ONE to pin him to the shower bed and went after the live wire with the tweezers.   
After several failed attempts to catch a section writhing through the air, THREE gave it up and dug the tweezers around a section just beneath the skin. He twisted and pulled. Wire and flesh came free but caught on a kink that wrapped itself around bone. ONE stifled a cry as the wire pulled taught. Using both hands THREE forced the filament around the tweezers, taking up the length until the end finally released; quickly dropping it into the canister and capping it. THREE brushed at the water running into his eyes from the shower and realized his leather jacket was soaked. With a curse he shut off the water stream. It took several moment for the panic of ONE’s breathing to register past the sound of water trickling down the drain. THREE reached out and grasped ONE’s shoulder, a physical reminder that he wasn’t alone. ONE’s slashed hands grabbed THREE’s arm and held tight.   
After a few moments the object in the canister moved. Metal sliding against metal reminding them that they weren’t out of the woods yet. THREE shifted. “Wait,” ONE gasped, holding tighter as he struggled to normalize his breathing. He shifted forward into THREE. “There…” ONE struggled, “There could be more.” He let go of THREE’s arm and reached towards his scalp missing the look of horror THREE flashed at him. THREE pulled off his ruined jacket and activated his comm link, “I’m gonna need everyone in the infirmary,” THREE said hauling ONE to his feet.


	12. Chapter 12

The members of the Raza still standing; FIVE, FOUR, THREE, and TWO stared at the variations of grey displayed by the medical bay monitor. The Raza’s quarantine scanners painted a flickering impression of a human skull. The frilled contour lines of the brain fluttered with a living pulse; the edge of the jaw bone was drawn tight with distress… and across the living nuance were several hard white lines. They looked like a child’s addition to a page in a picture book. THREE cursed under his breath and leaned closer. “That one just moved” He whispered into the white noise of the silent med bay. With a creased brow, FOUR nodded that he had seen the movement. TWO put her chin into her shoulder to direct a question to the android behind them, “What is it?”  
The android cocked her head towards the ceiling panel to mimic thought. “I am still searching for an exact identification, but they seem to be a form of biometric technology.”  
“Like nanites?” TWO asked thinking of her own biotech.  
“No, your nanites are an extension of your sympathetic neural system,” the android answered “These do not integrate with any of ONE’s existing biology. It would be more accurate to describe them as a synthetic parasite. They appear to be modifying and in some cases counteracting his body’s natural responses.”  
FIVE gave the android a horrified look, “How do we get them out?”  
FOUR countered, “Even if we get them out, has ONE been compromised?”  
The android seemed to consider a moment while she cross referenced the data from the scanner against the million’s of bio patent specs available in her backup RAM. “An electrical shock would be the most expedient means to terminate them,” She chose to literally misinterpret the more disturbing implications of FOUR’s question. “However, ONE would not survive the electrical current level required. I have attempted to communicate with them but have not achieved a response.”  
“Is that even safe?” FOUR charged, “They look aggressive. What if they are a weapon?”  
That caught FIVE’s attention. “That’s horrible, why would someone do that to ONE? Hemb is a doctor, right? What if they are medical and we are overacting thinking they are weapons?”   
THREE huffed in disbelief. “We ain’t that lucky,” he muttered. TWO sent him a warning look. None of them had filled FIVE in to what they had seen on the Purveyor.  
TWO hated herself for vocalizing it. “We can’t risk this corrupting the Raza’s systems.”  
The déjà vu moment felt like a bizarre role reversal from the infectious bite she had gotten from their last salvage job. But she had been in containment and ONE had been advocating for her release despite the risk to the Raza. She shook her head with frustration as the comparison highlighted how inadequate she was at playing his role. “What about using the damaged synth we pulled last minute from the Purveyor as a buffer?” TWO thought aloud.   
The android seemed to brighten “If they are indeed part of the Purveyor’s network, FIVE and I would likely be able to issue a command to disengage and power down.”   
“So, what next?” THREE asked scrubbing his wet hair and sending water flying.   
FOUR wiped the resulting spray from his shoulder with a look of suffering. “First, stop leaving puddles,” He growled.  
TWO agreed with a hint of a smile, “Then help FOUR drag the synthetic here.” She turned to FIVE, “We fried the wireless transmitters to isolate the system. You’ll need to hardwire it and have the Raza build redundancy into the firewall.” FIVE nodded eager to get working on a solution.” TWO palmed the specimen tube that now held the parasite from the shower and walked to the doorway, “Keep me updated,” She directed, “I’m going to give Dr Hemb a chance to answer for this.”  
“Wait! That sounds more fun than hauling robot parts around.” THREE complained rubbing a muscle barking in his back. “Can’t FOUR handle the bot on his own?” The others ignored him and left for their assignments without a response. Finding himself alone, THREE stepped to the edge of the containment field. ONE lay unresponsive on the table. Drugging him had been the only way to get him still enough for the scanners to get a clear picture and now the slow rise and fall of his bare chest was the only evidence of life. “How many more times you gonna put me thru this?” THREE muttered under his breath, reliving the sleeping beauty moment from the Perveyor and checking his six to make sure there weren’t any synthetics bearing down on him this time. “Damn robots,” He muttered turning for the exit.  
VVVV  
TWO’s skin gleamed beneath the overhead lighting of the unused storage room. She moved with oiled grace and predatory efficiency. Her audience of one was spellbound despite the personal cost to his physical well being.  
Dr Hemb rolled his tongue and spat to clear the metallic slurry flooding his mouth. He wore his admiration in hues of red, black, and blue. She had marked him bone deep and he ached for more. “My turn,” he gasped, “Truth or dare?” TWO’s answer was a wicked left hook that left static in his vision. Truth, he translated, taking a moment to catch his breath. “The leader of the Raza, the darkest beast to roam the black, a name so fatal grown men act like children; refusing to speak the name… is auditioning for the role of protector?” Dr Hemb shook his head no. “What is a single crew member in relation to your tally of dead?”   
TWO smiled in threat and hiked her steel tipped boot into his groin. With imminent threat, she polished blood off the two foot specimen tube, before sliding it up his shoulder to his neck. The liquid inside sloshed, causing the thin metallic worm to dance in suspension. “The worth of a single life depends on the value it offers. Yours holds none without an explanation of what this is?” she reasoned, leaning her weight into his sensitive region.   
“An adaptive multimodal biometric probe for the basal ganglia” He answered tailing a groan from the pressure she was exerting. TWO dug her fingers into the column of his throat feeling his pulse flutter beneath her strength. “It’s not meant as a criticism,” he added, “You and I are more alike than you may care to admit. Just because we aren’t something, doesn’t mean we don’t hunger for it.” TWO judged his pale eyes for anything that could pass for common and found them lacking. Sensing her withdrawal, Dr Hemb gambled, “He shines so bright, sensitive, sweet… still trying to do what’s right against all odds,” Dr Hemb licked his lip slowly. “…can still divine the possibility of good in this existence.” He whispered. “But this isn’t about him, it’s about your pursuit of redemption.”   
TWO laughed darkly, “You seem familiar with our record but somehow, you believe the Raza capable of regret?”  
Dr Hemb swallowed, his Adam’s apple struggling against her grip. “Be honest, you want a way out of the pit. You need someone who can see the path.”  
TWO kicked the chair backward, she was too revved up to care if she damaged his hands. His words left a residue that slid her past caring whether there was any of him left of value to trade when they dropped out of FTL. The crash and resulting yelp of pain felt cleansing. She couldn’t bring herself to recount how many days ONE had been left to his corrosion. Rage arced her system leaving little patience for his verbal foreplay. She took the length between wins personally and the doctor was the last man standing between her and a finish line they had to reach. They needed ONE back. They needed him to be ok. She didn’t see a way back if they failed this one. She violently rejected the way Dr Hemb’s words resonated by sending the doctor sliding across the floor with a kick.   
“How do we remove them?” TWO continued.  
“Wrong question,” Dr Hemb panted out. “What do they do is more important. It’s why you are going to leave them in place.” The chair back pinned his arms against the flooring leaving his boots in the air.  
“That doesn’t sound like me,” TWO responded pulling a blade from the top of her boot. She stood over him so he could watch her toy with the weapon. Haloed against the sparse lighting, blood lust lacing her grace, she was the Christian god’s fallen arch angel; a vision that aroused Dr Hemb’s reckless curiosity. TWO trailed the tip across the nubs of his boot’s sole. The shank’s weight caught on a ridge beneath the center of his foot’s pad. TWO looked him in the eye, her eyebrow raised in query. He bit his lip, “My research will make humanity more humane.” His breath hitched in anticipation. With one fluid thrust, TWO penetrated the rubber and buried her blade to it’s hilt. Dr Hemb physically shuddered embracing the sharp sensation.   
In a husky voice he gave to her, “A synthetic parasite… programmed to identify and dissect. We both want what’s in his head. Imagine the good it could do if I could dig it out and make it available? …a pharmacologic formula for enhancing the more charitable side of human nature. I’m only making available what his family is paying me to remove. Everyone benefits.” TWO couldn’t listen to any more and dropped her knee onto his throat to stop the flow of words. She was intimately aware of the personal cost that fueled scientific advancement.   
The door slide open and THREE leaned in with a grin. “Hate to break up the bonding session, but thought you would want to know the wiz kid came through and our computerized cruise director cleared ONE from quarantine. Plan is to catch a few Z’s before we arrive.”  
TWO stepped back and rolled her shoulders to relax. THREE stepped into the room and glanced at the heap on the floor. “Are you saving anything for us to sell when we get there?”   
“Is he alright?” TWO asked, turning her eyes on THREE.  
THREE shrugged and looked away. “Pretty boy says he’s up for the next round of action, but…” THREE didn’t finish but TWO got the message.  
Dr Hemb shifted against the floor. He looked betrayed. “Don’t rely on him,” the doctor warned. “Without the tech to enforce sequencing on the overlapping memory sequences I’m surprised he’s standing let alone sane.”   
THREE shook his head in disbelief, “I don’t get it. What’s so smart about spouting a bunch of gibberish knowing no one is going to understand? Sounds more like failure to me.”  
Dr Hemb put aside his frustration to explain, “I’ve been giving Derrick’s body a series of neural drugs to force reconstruction of the data that a transfer transit withholds when it prematurely terminates. Then I split the unit’s output so that his conscious would be streaming simultaneously. In deep REM the human brain is extremely flexible about time tracking because the physical senses are repressed. Our bodies are not as flexible, they tend to hard code a timing sequence. While he processes the two experiences the tech would have suppressed the physical side effects of memories tagged with conflicting hard coded physical timelines.”  
THREE scrubbed at the scruff on his jaw. He got the gist the doc was getting at but refused to give the doc the satisfaction. So he shook his head. “Nope, still nothing. But hey, if it’s important you can keep trying after I grab a bite to eat.” TWO shifted to hid her amusement from Dr Hemb. She made a mental note that THREE was good at interrogation and chose to leave with him to let their prisoner stew. 

 

VVVV

The android looked up eagerly seconds before the ship’s control console blipped an alert that the inner door to the aft airlock had been cycled. She turned but found that TWO had left and she stood alone on the bridge. She cocked her head to the side accessing the locations of all the crew members. One was in his quarters. TWO and THREE stood outside ONE’s sleeping quarters. Four and Five were together in the physical training center. With a blink she ran a full diagnostics on the airlock’s door systems, the ship’s alert systems, the decompression system and found zero anomalies. So She blinked again and ran a full system analysis of all onboard life support systems from the overall system job schedule all the way to the minutia of the real time CO2 filtering monitors and found a .03 elevation in the airlock’s vicinity prior to the door’s activity. She recorded a message to alert TWO that she was investigating who had opened the airlock’s inner door and scheduled it’s delivery for 3.6 seconds after projected arrival at the airlock. Then she turned and left the bridge.  
The airlock door was sealed and a scan by her optics detected a .0001% probability of malfunction in the door’s seal. Stepping up to the window she peered inside to find ONE seated in what her human factors logic filter classified as emotional distress. She stepped back, cancelled delivery of her initial recording and recorded a new message for TWO. Stating that the ship systems, operating within system norms, had alerted her to activity of the inner door of the aft airlock. That she had investigated and found ONE without his ship communicator – which was cause for the initial assumption that he was in his quarters. She hesitated a nanosecond debating between immediate delivery or implementing a human factor’s emotional sensitivity protocol that would delay delivery.  
She set the delay timer and cycled the door open. Efficiently, she stepped into the airlock and seated herself a comforting 2.3 centimeters to his left. She adjusted her smile from attentive to compassionate and monitored ONE’s biorhythms to detect a next course of action.

“Go away,” ONE growled.

The android weighed the command against a .01 decrease in the Alpha waves coming off ONE’s brain initiated by her arrival. That combined with a slight increase in Theta wave activity indicated a .0001% probability that her presence was having a positive impact. So she remained.

ONE pressed his back against the outer door of the airlock. The vacuum on the other side sucked greedily at his body heat. The perilous situation served it’s purpose, his body kicked over to fight or flight and the resulting adrenaline shut down the circus of horrors running on loop in his head. He closed his eyes to shut out everything, the Raza, the android, his own trembling and he concentrated on pulling air into his chest.  
A series of snuff films playing out of sync on the same screen. The horror was lost in the discord of the mashup. But the moments of harmony were devastating; the feel of curling a cold dead infant into his arms; the icy beauty of Catherine’s eyes as she crushed his airways; the ticking staccato of Dr Hemb’s antique stop watch counting the seconds as chemicals ate pathways into ONE’s crucial organs. Like shredded flesh, none of it hung together in any semblance of sense. His blank slate had been replaced by one mass of indecipherable gore.   
Derrick Moss was supposed to be better than being Jace Corso, but reality had a twisted sense of humor. His broken laugh would have raised the hackles of anything living. However the android was not bothered. She kept her vigil and eventually his laughter turned to tears, then exhaustion. When ONE’s warmth slumped against her side the android kept watch as ONE finally slept.


	13. Chapter 13

The planet PJ364-787 didn’t possess enough worth to warrant an actual name. It was an insignificant iceburg at the edge of a collapsing super nova. Another 50 years and the planet would succumb to the gravitational pull of a nearby black hole. Too short a prognosis for corporate to sink resources into development. The only use for it’s breathable atmosphere was as a staging area for deep space expedition, a profession for the desperate or the incarcerated.   
TWO landed the Raza’s shuttle 10 miles from the rendezvous. The planet’s crust was glacial the ice constantly shifting making it impossible to land the shuttle for any period of time. Without SIX as an alternate pilot, the environmental conditions condemned TWO to stay with the shuttle. The consolation that she was closer than her normal overlook from the bridge of the Raza, did little to ease her gut instinct to ditch the deal and keep her family in for the night. But she wasn’t a mother hen, so she watched ONE, THREE and FOUR suit up for sub zero temperatures.   
Taking advantage of the activity Dr Hemb moved in on ONE who was struggling with the webbing on his parka’s belt. The touch of fingers running up the back of his head made ONE jerk. Spinning ONE put his back into the wall and sent the doctor sprawling with a kick to the chest. It was over before anyone could react. ONE’s heart beat jack hammered. He thumped his head back against the shuttle siding trying to wrangle his breathing back to a sub normal rate. THREE noticed and sent his concern in a look to TWO. FOUR rolled the doctor to take a measure of revenge while binding his wrists. 

“Twitchy much?” THREE directed at ONE.

“I’ll come thru.” ONE answered, hitching the strap of their field equipment higher on his shoulder. He glanced over his shoulder to ensure distance between himself and Dr Hemb before stepping past THREE into the banshee wind of planet PJ364-787. ONE already felt like the crew was on high alert for any excuse to moth ball him. He needed to belong on the Raza because the alternative was a bloody Shakespearian tragedy were he suspected he played more Ophelia than Macbeth. He forced himself not to dwell on how his head had conjured up the comparison, running headfirst into the blank wall of amnesia only served to overload all the circuit breakers of his internal shipwreck. He needed to prove to himself that despite the past he had uncovered, he still brought value to this team; because he cared too much to drag them down. So he gave silent thanks to the bulky heavy weather gear for concealing the tremors and forced himself forward.

THREE watched a moment before turning to punch Dr Hemb in the shoulder. “Behave, or I’ll stuff you down the first crevice we find.” FOUR smirked, as he pushed the man down the shuttle’s ramp in front of him.

“I’ll keep the shuttle close, but this atmosphere is going to make communication spotty.” TWO said from the pilot chair, “Play this paranoid, stay safe, and be on time for pickup.” An alarm on the console was harping about the instability of the surface the shuttle had put down on. THREE gave a mock salute, grabbed an extra round for Betty, his long range cannon and moved out to cover their landing party’s rear.

VVVV

PJ364-787‘s landscape was a study in opposites. The sky was a writhing sea of frothing dark and the ground was a phosphorescent powdered plateau of ice that took years to flow a meter. ONE lay flattened between the two on a crystalline ridge. Through binoculars he studied the vehicle and trio setting up shop at the rendezvous geo tag. They appeared completely unarmed as specified by the terms of the deal. But they looked too at ease, too oblivious of the dangers on the planet, to come off as anything other than bait. THREE crawled up beside him. ONE handed the binoculars over in an attempt to cover his shift away to pad the space between them.

THREE noticed but didn’t voice the ‘fine by me’ comment that ran through his head. “What are we looking at?” THREE asked.

“A setup,” ONE sighed, “They haven’t even glanced at the horizon which means they probably have someone out here who already has eyes on us.”

THREE nodded in agreement. “They show with the money?”

“Yeah, they made sure to open the black case and play with a few credits before leaving it unguarded in the center of camp.”

THREE grunted, “Yeah, trap.”

ONE pointed out a deep crease in the ridge to their right. “We probably get a blind spot if we go thru there on our way in.”

THREE nodded, “OK, but it doesn’t have sight lines for Betty to cover you while the deal goes down. Plus, that math don’t work for us - four go in, three come out still tips our hand.” THREE shifted to pull at the damn hood of his parka. Of course he got one that didn’t fit right and sent a chill draft down his spine. Wait, maybe if he just adjusted some of the ties… He changed tactics to fiddle with the tie adjustments.

One grit his teeth, THREE was a big presence on his own, but every additional herky jerky movement put ONE further on edge. Suddenly ONE’s hand whipped out grabbing THREE’s shoulder wrenching him still. “What the hell?” THREE growled, his hand jumping to the pistol on his hip to check that it was still there. It was gonna take a while to forget how easily ONE could lift a guy’s gun. But the brittle look on ONE caused a flash of concern.

ONE frowned and turned away to hide whatever had alarmed THREE. “We could…” but it took a second try to get the thought out. “We could put on a show. Make it look like the prisoner tried to escape and we had to knock him out. Then in the blind spot we slap together a decoy for the unconscious body. We dress Hemb like one of us and he walks in carrying his own unconscious dummy while one of us slip away to find the hidden trigger man.”

THREE nodded slowly, “It ain’t perfect, but it could work. Guess I can’t blame you for finding a plan that involves braining the shock doc.” 

VVVV

FOUR dumped Dr Hemb’s weight at THREE’s feet and stepped away to the channel canyon wall to start stripping his outer layer. “The longer we take the more suspicious they will be,” FOUR said pointing at the doctor. THREE frowned and glanced at ONE who’s bloodied knuckles were busy pulling items out of the top of his pack. THREE turned back to FOUR who was now glaring. “Really? Why do I have to be the one to undress him?” THREE complained.

ONE tossed both emergency survival blankets from the med kit over to FOUR. With a little creativity FOUR added the blankets as insulation beneath his long underwear to serve in place of the outerwear he was losing to the rouse. THREE tossed the doctor’s outer leggings with audible disgust then went to work on the parka. ONE filled the leggings with ice and snow and bound the legs. Soon THREE had Dr Hemb back on his feet and redressed in FOUR’s gear. ONE helped get the dummy draped over the doctor’s shoulder in a fireman’s carry and they were back on their way. Three men and an unconscious prisoner headed to make the deal. FOUR waited a few beats before slipping out of the crevice the opposite direction.

VVVV 

 

ONE set a slow pace to buy time for FOUR. He and THREE kept their eyes scoping the horizon as they walked Dr Hemb towards the heavily oxidized terrain rover. Beneath them the ice objected to their passing with bone deep pops and groans. They stopped several paces from the trio that met them. Bulked up in cold weather gear it was difficult to decipher details other than two were huge and the third slight. After several minutes sizing each other up while the heat of their breathing danced on the wind. The slight one pointed a finger at THREE, “Terms said no guns at the exchange.”

THREE shrugged, “I don’t go anywhere without my girl. You don’t like it, then take off.”  
There was a slight shuffle and their eyes turned to ONE. ONE stared back without a comment. Finally the leader added, “That doc you carrying going to live long enough to be worth buying?”

“Yeah, the skills are there,” ONE nodded. The hair on the back of his neck continued to whisper that these guys were a bad sort, but ONE couldn’t bring himself to make the deal without some sort of disclaimer. He turned his focus to the horizon and added, “But I wouldn’t trust him if I were you.”

The leader nodded, “Sounds like he’ll fit right in.” He turned and waved them to follow. “We got payment, come step out of the wind and have a cup of Joe. Since we’re giving disclaimers, I’ll tell you it tastes like crap.”

THREE gave a bark of laughter and smiled, “I like these guys.” He said stepping past ONE heading towards the case. The others followed and ONE suddenly found himself alone with Dr Hemb. The doctor studied ONE deciding on an approach. “Would it help if I admitted I made a mistake?” Dr Hemb asked. ONE crossed his arms tightly, his answer was silence. “You may take issue with my methods, but it was all done on your behalf. All I ever wanted was to help.” Dr Hemb moved towards his obsession hesitating when ONE quickly stepped back. “Why won’t you accept help? Do you not see how much the people around you want to help? Can you not recognize that?” Dr Hemb worried his split lip, distracted by the pain. “Is the problem that you don’t think you need it or that you don’t think you are worth it?” That finally bought Dr Hemb a clear look into ONE’s whisky hued eyes.

“It won’t work,” ONE said sounding like he was gutting himself. “None of us get a pass on the consequences of our choices, so enjoy your trip.”

“HEY!” THREE shouted in sudden outrage, “This case is light.”

The leader shrugged and handed a steaming cup into THREE’s palm. “Don’t sweat it big guy. The thing is we aren’t a volunteer outfit and we’re light across the board. So think of this more as a welcoming committee and a pay advance. ” THREE reached for his cannon but a pop in the distance caused the mug of coffee in his hand to shatter. “Don’t,” The leader said with a smile. He waved towards his right, “Misha’s a crack shot and the next bullet won’t be as kind.”  
An alarm began emitting from the rover. The leader huffed, “Damn twitchy sensor!” he spat. The frosted ground beneath them gave a throaty bark. “Hey Jane, go check that. I’m not scrambling just cause this beast’s sensors are a century old.” He turned back to THREE with a look of apology. “The equipment’s crap, but the company ain’t bad. It’s a better gig than Hyperion-8.”

THREE gave the guy a cold stare. “Our captain’s the possessive type, you sure you want to try this?” The ground shuddered and a plume of powder erupted just beyond the rover. 

“Dammit, that looks real.” The leader turned and started pitching orders. “Pull the stakes on the wind break. Forget the fire, just grab the gear. Get the rover’s engine running…” He turned to THREE, “Guess you can think of this as a rescue now. Grab the case and get in the rover.”

THREE reached for the handle and the ground dropped three feet out from under him throwing him on his ass. The rover’s springs bottomed out with a loud metal on metal thunk, it’s ground stability sensor continuing to wail. ONE struggled back to his knees when a piercing screech sent him scrambling to shield his ears with his hands. The money case slowly slid past THREE as the ground beneath them began to cant towards the rover. THREE took a moment to ensure ONE was in action before staggering after the credits. The other men had ditched their gear and were climbing into the rover. The leader hesitated at the door. He held his hand out to THREE in invitation even as the rover started to move. 

THREE held his course. He had just managed to get a hand on the case when the tilt beneath his boots passed his center of gravity and swept him off his feet. The wheels of the rover rasped losing purchase and slipping sideways until the cab lost it’s horizon line and slammed against the ice with a crack. THREE spit curses in horror as his sliding momentum picked up speed towards the spinning axel and under carriage of the vehicle. Beneath the powdery snow, the quartzite like ground left nothing for THREE to grab hold of. 

When THREE turned after their pay, ONE didn’t stop to think. He stumbled to his feet and sprinted. The flutter of the wind break staked into the ice sparked a desperate idea. Pulling his knife, ONE slid into the closest tie line. Looping it through his grip he cut it loose of the stake. Twisting he made a sliding dive downhill rationalizing that all things travel downhill, he just needed to get there first.


	14. Chapter 14

The shift in the ground slowed as the incline approached vertical and THREE’s momentum approached free fall. The far edge of ice had surged to a shear 40 foot cliff. THREE’s boots hit the rover’s undercarriage hard, the torque tearing something in his knee. He threw the weight of the case forward to compensate and the speed of the drive train cut a sheet of sparks into the metallic siding. The rover slammed into the wall of the fault with a crunch. Chunks of ice sheared loose. THREE threw his arm up in defense but a blow to his temple left him panting on all fours; fighting back the black.

Beneath him the rover shuddered. The engine knocked and locked up with a cough. The drive train screeched to a standstill. With a massive sucking pop the fissure opened up, brackish water lapped forward. The rover pitched. THREE repositioned his grip on the case and scrabbled up the rover’s underbelly to gain altitude. His heart pounded, his breath pumped, nothing else registered as he surged towards peaking the rover before it drowned. The cab gave a loud belch and the tail gate bobbed and swung sideways. THREE hurdled the bumper but lost his footing against the wet sheet metal of the tailgate.  
THREE hit the water like a bug against a windshield. A sharp crack of pain; quickly siphoned away by the frigid temperature of the water. He moved his arms and legs surprised to find his body knew what to do if his head could settle on a direction. Follow the bubbles?

VVVV

With a twang, the rope twisted around ONE’s fist took a crushing grip and abruptly cut his decent short. The joint in his arm and shoulder protested but ONE swallowed the pain. His boot’s floundered in the frothing water as he swung at the end of his rope. The murky deep was quickly pulling the rover beneath it’s stank surface. The water slowly ate it’s way up from ONE’s toes. He swung his head trying to get a position on THREE. Pinned between the rover’s sinking wheel well and the tire a pair of white sub zero leggings lay unmoving. ONE’s heart took a hit before he realized there were no boots or feet, which meant it was the snow dummy. “C’mon you stupid idiot,” he muttered, struggling with the effort to get his feet oriented perpendicular to the ice deck. He needed more control of his swing. Turning back to the water, he scanned the opaque surface. “Where are you,” he shouted.  
The scene stilled as the rover dropped beneath the surface of the water; thrashing as air pocket’s burst to get free. THREE finally surfaced with a weak flounder. ONE moved fast, catching Betty’s strap to bind them together. As the weight of the rover slipped away the ice rebounded like a cork. The ground surged up beneath them and ONE quickly twisted his arm a few more times in the cannon’s chest strap before twisting his fingers around THREE’s sopping collar. As the water quickly receded, he realized with disbelief that THREE still had a grip on the money case. ONE had a moment to glance at THREE’s beached form before the edge of the ice launched them like a sling shot. ONE’s boots left the ice. There was a moment to debate whether to try holding on or letting go before their combined mass hit his arm and jerked his shoulder from it’s socket. The final metal stake of the ruined wind shelter snapped. A moment of weightlessness was the only part ONE or THREE would ever remember about the landing.

VVVV

Frost bite caused FOUR to fumble the sniper scope he held to his eye. It didn’t matter how well he had trained to ignore the demands of his body, if he didn’t put on better outer wear he was going to have to give up search and rescue to head for the shuttle. He glanced past the trampled snow to the body he had dropped. She had put up an admirable fight. He wore a few red badges in testament to her tenacity. But when the ground had split with the thunder of cataclysm, FOUR’s priorities had changed. His tactics changed from capture to expedient finality. Even then, he had taken too long. The ground shaking action had stilled by the time her body had collapsed dead, leaving FOUR clueless about the outcome of his crew mates.

The rogue section of the plateau had settled at a slight angle. Ridges marked the sections that had settled at new altitudes. The deep space expedition’s camp had been scoured. The rover was gone, but small bits of litter remained, scattered like confetti. A black smudge was the only marker of ground zero where the campfire had stood. FOUR scanned for movement; a wrapper dancing on the wind, a can slowly rolling along the new incline, a shred of canvas caught beneath mounded snow...

FOUR hesitated, studying the canvas that had served as a windbreak. It shifted like a kite caught on a tree branch. It’s rope twisted around an odd branch that ended in a gloved hand. FOUR identified the form from a tuft of dark peeking from the curve of a parka like mound – the curve of a hood - ONE. Not far away, TWO’s long range canon stood half buried; projecting into the sky like a war zone grave marker. FOUR ignored the temperature eating at his extremities, determined to see some proof of life. His comm link cackled in static, mocking the futility of his situation. He wasn’t equipped to stay out in this exposure, but meeting the shuttle without ONE and THREE didn’t sit well. He studied the sniper he had dispatched. Gore soaked outerwear was better than nothing.  
Ignoring the unpleasantness, FOUR gave up trying to get the jacket to close over his wide chest. The pants were a tight fit, but warmth was already collecting making the hampered movement, worthwhile. FOUR pulled the scope back to his eye and stilled to see what he assumed was THREE shoveling snow from ONE’s unmoving body.

 

VVVV

A rough tug, a clumsy weight collapsing against his side, a large palm supporting his jaw… each sensation a breadcrumb ONE followed towards consciousness. Someone peeled his eyelid back and ONE flinched from the light. There was more movement and a muttered apology. ONE was trying to organize a response when a boot planted itself against damaged ribs to pull on his injured shoulder. ONE’s shout drowned out the soft pop of his shoulder relocating. He tried to roll away, but hands shoved him back into the snow, fumbling with the zipper of his parka. Weight settled over his chest. ONE blinked to clear his vision of pain. A shock of ice against the heat of his shoulder brought him aware with a gasp.   
Still wrapped in THREE’s outerwear, Dr Hemb peered down at him. Instantly, ONE thrashed and bucked. Dr Hemb indulged himself a few moments before leaning forward to gentle his ride. He pinned one bicep under his knee and dug his fingers into ONE’s hair and held tight. “Easy, hush,” he soothed. ONE didn’t stop, but the disadvantage of his position and injuries left his efforts fruitless. Dr Hemb’s lips twisted into a sly smile. “That’s it,” the doctor crooned, “Get it all out, lather yourself up. It’s just you and me now.” 

The doctor pulled a large metal stake forward for ONE’s inspection. The end was curved over to create an eyelet. A short piece of nylon rope still clung to it’s anchor. The metal of the other end was distorted from fatigue and sheared off at a jagged angle. “Have you any idea what would have happened if the metal of this stake hadn’t failed?” the doctor asked. Tightening his grip on ONE’s hair Dr Hemb used the frigid metal to trace ONE’s carotid artery down the column of his neck and over the hump of his clavicle. The doctor leaned forward to whisper, “Relax. I’m here to help.” Dr Hemb whispered watching in fascination at the movement in ONE’s throat when he swallowed. 

“With what?” ONE ground out in response.

“Trust,” Dr Hemb hissed. “Youv’e got to learn that people don’t want you, you’re just a commodity, a means to their ends.” The jagged metal tip changed direction, tracing the path of the sub clavicle artery towards ONE’s shoulder. “They only measure worth with regards to what you can do for them. Stop trusting. You’re inviting in the ones looking to case the joint, then crying victim when they take you for everything.” The metal spike came to rest at the soft point between ONE’s aching shoulder and the curve of his pectoral muscle. “If the stake hadn’t failed, you would have lost your arm for a man that destroyed your life; a man that Catherine paid to dally with to rid herself of an unwanted pregnancy; a man that destroyed your life. In comparison, what I’m about to do is a mercy.” With that the doctor shoved the metal pin into ONE’s muscle. ONE arched, his jaw locked against the scream ripped from his vocal chords. Dr Hemb rode the motion and threw his hood back to feel the wind in his hair. “Easy darling, the damage isn’t permanent and if you can forgive Marcus, I know you’ll forgive me.”

Suddenly, Dr Hemb rocked sideways from the sound of a double pop. Taking advantage of the distraction, ONE kicked free and lunged to his feet. The doctor lay still, staining the snow beneath him cherry red. Holding his shoulder, ONE quickly scanned the horizon before dashing for THREE’s half buried cannon. Stumbling as the weapon came free ONE shouldered the weapon and used the scope to get a better look at the direction the shoots had come from. A small figure raised it’s hand in distant greeting. FOUR, ONE realized. Raising his hand in response, ONE turned back to ensure FOUR had taken out the doctor’s pulse. Clearing the threat, ONE stumbled through the tumbled ice. The case of credits had split, mixing spots of color like decoys into the white snow, reminding ONE of who he was searching for. 

ONE found THREE pale and still, half buried in a dune of powder. THREE’s wet gear had stiffened and bonded to the icy ground. His lips had blued and unhealthy shadows had pooled beneath the skin around his eyes. Shock helped ONE put thought aside, helped him close off Dr Hemb’s words. He didn’t waste time checking for a pulse, the priority was to get THREE dry and warm. Pulling the knife from THREE’s boot, ONE cut him free of the binding clothes. ONE stripped his own parka and wrapped THREE in it’s warmth. He repeated the action with his outer pants then stumbled through the snow to strip Dr Hemb’s body for additional layers. On the way, ONE tripped over the ruined money case still half full. He ignored it until THREE was bundled up and the sharp wind sent an involuntary shiver through his cracked ribcage. The burning in his shoulder countered the bite of the temperature but left him doubled over facing the cold realization that he wouldn’t be capable of a fireman’s carry.   
Chaffing warmth into THREE’s chest with one arm, ONE searched for an answer. The canvas of the ruined wind break fluttered like a flag of surrender. ONE refused defeat and wrestled the fabric free of the ice. Using the hard side of the money case to slide across the snow, ONE secured THREE on top with the canvas. He tied a halter for pulling the impromptu travois and set about dragging THREE to the rendezvous with the shuttle.The shift in the ground slowed as the incline approached vertical and THREE’s momentum approached free fall. The far edge of ice had surged to a shear 40 foot cliff. THREE’s boots hit the rover’s undercarriage hard, the torque tearing something in his knee. He threw the weight of the case forward to compensate and the speed of the drive train cut a sheet of sparks into the metallic siding. The rover slammed into the wall of the fault with a crunch. Chunks of ice sheared loose. THREE threw his arm up in defense but a blow to his temple left him panting on all fours; fighting back the black.

Beneath him the rover shuddered. The engine knocked and locked up with a cough. The drive train screeched to a standstill. With a massive sucking pop the fissure opened up, brackish water lapped forward. The rover pitched. THREE repositioned his grip on the case and scrabbled up the rover’s underbelly to gain altitude. His heart pounded, his breath pumped, nothing else registered as he surged towards peaking the rover before it drowned. The cab gave a loud belch and the tail gate bobbed and swung sideways. THREE hurdled the bumper but lost his footing against the wet sheet metal of the tailgate.  
THREE hit the water like a bug against a windshield. A sharp crack of pain; quickly siphoned away by the frigid temperature of the water. He moved his arms and legs surprised to find his body knew what to do if his head could settle on a direction. Follow the bubbles?

VVVV

With a twang, the rope twisted around ONE’s fist took a crushing grip and abruptly cut his decent short. The joint in his arm and shoulder protested but ONE swallowed the pain. His boot’s floundered in the frothing water as he swung at the end of his rope. The murky deep was quickly pulling the rover beneath it’s stank surface. The water slowly ate it’s way up from ONE’s toes. He swung his head trying to get a position on THREE. Pinned between the rover’s sinking wheel well and the tire a pair of white sub zero leggings lay unmoving. ONE’s heart took a hit before he realized there were no boots or feet, which meant it was the snow dummy. “C’mon you stupid idiot,” he muttered, struggling with the effort to get his feet oriented perpendicular to the ice deck. He needed more control of his swing. Turning back to the water, he scanned the opaque surface. “Where are you,” he shouted.  
The scene stilled as the rover dropped beneath the surface of the water; thrashing as air pocket’s burst to get free. THREE finally surfaced with a weak flounder. ONE moved fast, catching Betty’s strap to bind them together. As the weight of the rover slipped away the ice rebounded like a cork. The ground surged up beneath them and ONE quickly twisted his arm a few more times in the cannon’s chest strap before twisting his fingers around THREE’s sopping collar. As the water quickly receded, he realized with disbelief that THREE still had a grip on the money case. ONE had a moment to glance at THREE’s beached form before the edge of the ice launched them like a sling shot. ONE’s boots left the ice. There was a moment to debate whether to try holding on or letting go before their combined mass hit his arm and jerked his shoulder from it’s socket. The final metal stake of the ruined wind shelter snapped. A moment of weightlessness was the only part ONE or THREE would ever remember about the landing.

VVVV

Frost bite caused FOUR to fumble the sniper scope he held to his eye. It didn’t matter how well he had trained to ignore the demands of his body, if he didn’t put on better outer wear he was going to have to give up search and rescue to head for the shuttle. He glanced past the trampled snow to the body he had dropped. She had put up an admirable fight. He wore a few red badges in testament to her tenacity. But when the ground had split with the thunder of cataclysm, FOUR’s priorities had changed. His tactics changed from capture to expedient finality. Even then, he had taken too long. The ground shaking action had stilled by the time her body had collapsed dead, leaving FOUR clueless about the outcome of his crew mates.

The rogue section of the plateau had settled at a slight angle. Ridges marked the sections that had settled at new altitudes. The deep space expedition’s camp had been scoured. The rover was gone, but small bits of litter remained, scattered like confetti. A black smudge was the only marker of ground zero where the campfire had stood. FOUR scanned for movement; a wrapper dancing on the wind, a can slowly rolling along the new incline, a shred of canvas caught beneath mounded snow...

FOUR hesitated, studying the canvas that had served as a windbreak. It shifted like a kite caught on a tree branch. It’s rope twisted around an odd branch that ended in a gloved hand. FOUR identified the form from a tuft of dark peeking from the curve of a parka like mound – the curve of a hood - ONE. Not far away, TWO’s long range canon stood half buried; projecting into the sky like a war zone grave marker. FOUR ignored the temperature eating at his extremities, determined to see some proof of life. His comm link cackled in static, mocking the futility of his situation. He wasn’t equipped to stay out in this exposure, but meeting the shuttle without ONE and THREE didn’t sit well. He studied the sniper he had dispatched. Gore soaked outerwear was better than nothing.  
Ignoring the unpleasantness, FOUR gave up trying to get the jacket to close over his wide chest. The pants were a tight fit, but warmth was already collecting making the hampered movement, worthwhile. FOUR pulled the scope back to his eye and stilled to see what he assumed was THREE shoveling snow from ONE’s unmoving body.

 

VVVV

A rough tug, a clumsy weight collapsing against his side, a large palm supporting his jaw… each sensation a breadcrumb ONE followed towards consciousness. Someone peeled his eyelid back and ONE flinched from the light. There was more movement and a muttered apology. ONE was trying to organize a response when a boot planted itself against damaged ribs to pull on his injured shoulder. ONE’s shout drowned out the soft pop of his shoulder relocating. He tried to roll away, but hands shoved him back into the snow, fumbling with the zipper of his parka. Weight settled over his chest. ONE blinked to clear his vision of pain. A shock of ice against the heat of his shoulder brought him aware with a gasp.   
Still wrapped in THREE’s outerwear, Dr Hemb peered down at him. Instantly, ONE thrashed and bucked. Dr Hemb indulged himself a few moments before leaning forward to gentle his ride. He pinned one bicep under his knee and dug his fingers into ONE’s hair and held tight. “Easy, hush,” he soothed. ONE didn’t stop, but the disadvantage of his position and injuries left his efforts fruitless. Dr Hemb’s lips twisted into a sly smile. “That’s it,” the doctor crooned, “Get it all out, lather yourself up. It’s just you and me now.” 

The doctor pulled a large metal stake forward for ONE’s inspection. The end was curved over to create an eyelet. A short piece of nylon rope still clung to it’s anchor. The metal of the other end was distorted from fatigue and sheared off at a jagged angle. “Have you any idea what would have happened if the metal of this stake hadn’t failed?” the doctor asked. Tightening his grip on ONE’s hair Dr Hemb used the frigid metal to trace ONE’s carotid artery down the column of his neck and over the hump of his clavicle. The doctor leaned forward to whisper, “Relax. I’m here to help.” Dr Hemb whispered watching in fascination at the movement in ONE’s throat when he swallowed. 

“With what?” ONE ground out in response.

“Trust,” Dr Hemb hissed. “Youv’e got to learn that people don’t want you, you’re just a commodity, a means to their ends.” The jagged metal tip changed direction, tracing the path of the sub clavicle artery towards ONE’s shoulder. “They only measure worth with regards to what you can do for them. Stop trusting. You’re inviting in the ones looking to case the joint, then crying victim when they take you for everything.” The metal spike came to rest at the soft point between ONE’s aching shoulder and the curve of his pectoral muscle. “If the stake hadn’t failed, you would have lost your arm for a man that destroyed your life; a man that Catherine paid to dally with to rid herself of an unwanted pregnancy; a man that destroyed your life. In comparison, what I’m about to do is a mercy.” With that the doctor shoved the metal pin into ONE’s muscle. ONE arched, his jaw locked against the scream ripped from his vocal chords. Dr Hemb rode the motion and threw his hood back to feel the wind in his hair. “Easy darling, the damage isn’t permanent and if you can forgive Marcus, I know you’ll forgive me.”

Suddenly, Dr Hemb rocked sideways from the sound of a double pop. Taking advantage of the distraction, ONE kicked free and lunged to his feet. The doctor lay still, staining the snow beneath him cherry red. Holding his shoulder, ONE quickly scanned the horizon before dashing for THREE’s half buried cannon. Stumbling as the weapon came free ONE shouldered the weapon and used the scope to get a better look at the direction the shoots had come from. A small figure raised it’s hand in distant greeting. FOUR, ONE realized. Raising his hand in response, ONE turned back to ensure FOUR had taken out the doctor’s pulse. Clearing the threat, ONE stumbled through the tumbled ice. The case of credits had split, mixing spots of color like decoys into the white snow, reminding ONE of who he was searching for. 

ONE found THREE pale and still, half buried in a dune of powder. THREE’s wet gear had stiffened and bonded to the icy ground. His lips had blued and unhealthy shadows had pooled beneath the skin around his eyes. Shock helped ONE put thought aside, helped him close off Dr Hemb’s words. He didn’t waste time checking for a pulse, the priority was to get THREE dry and warm. Pulling the knife from THREE’s boot, ONE cut him free of the binding clothes. ONE stripped his own parka and wrapped THREE in it’s warmth. He repeated the action with his outer pants then stumbled through the snow to strip Dr Hemb’s body for additional layers. On the way, ONE tripped over the ruined money case still half full. He ignored it until THREE was bundled up and the sharp wind sent an involuntary shiver through his cracked rib cage. The burning in his shoulder countered the bite of the temperature, It left him doubled over facing the cold realization that he wouldn’t be capable of a fireman’s carry.   
Chaffing warmth into THREE’s chest with one arm, ONE searched for an answer. The canvas of the ruined wind break fluttered like a flag of surrender. ONE refused defeat and wrestled the fabric free of the ice. Using the hard side of the money case to slide across the snow, ONE secured THREE on top with the canvas. He tied a halter for pulling the impromptu travois and set about dragging THREE to the rendezvous with the shuttle. The physical exertion would fend off hypothermia long enough to get to the others. It was sound in theory but the numbing cold was the the saving grace. It allowed him to ignore his own physical condition to make the long haul.


	15. Chapter 15

“Hey, zombie! You going to join the group or just hover?” THREE challenged. ONE managed to drag his attention to focus on THREE, but his eyes slowly slid back to the flooring as his attention was pulled inward. He was dressed in a simple white T shirt, his arm in a sling strapped to his chest. ONE had begun to wear his gun strapped to his hip again. THREE managed to dig himself into a pit with the others trying to express why ONE having access to a weapon made him nervous. Wounds took time to heal, but none of them liked thinking about what kinds of wounds ONE was likely dealing with. 

A sneeze shook THREE from his train of thought. He was still trying to ditch the head cold his dip on PJ364-787 had earned him. He was also still trying to piece together the details of how he had managed to climb out of the water and hoof it 15 miles back to the shuttle with their money in hand. He gathered from FOUR that ONE had played a role, but elaborating on details wasn’t FOUR’s strength. THREE remembered waking in the medical bay with a runny nose, buried beneath blankets. TWO had repaid him several bruises for the scare he had given them. He now had standing orders to stay conscious and moving of his own accord when he returned from a mission. More hints that he owed ONE thanks for… something.

The crew had settled in the mess hall for a meal and ONE was taking his sweet ass time eyeing the seat left open for him. Never mind that ONE joining the crew at meal time was an improvement. THREE had been trying to get a raise out of him for days. The lack of response was driving THREE crazy. It was like living with the walking dead, ONE had completely checked out. The guy would execute on a direct order, but heaven forbid you try for a bit of conversation. THREE swung his head and caught FOUR’s warning glare. “What!” THREE barked in challenge. “Cut it out!” TWO ordered forcing the table to settle. THREE huffed and swung back to… the empty doorway. ONE’s plate balanced on the counter abandoned. “Great!” THREE said throwing his hand out to indicate ONE’s departure, “It’s like living with a friggin ghost.” THREE shoveled food into his face without registering taste, texture, or color. He couldn’t do this anymore, no more coddling and trying to preserve the egg shells. THREE slammed his spork down with a clatter causing FIVE to jump in surprise. He muttered something he hoped sounded like an apology and went looking for the confrontation he really wanted.

Forty minutes later THREE was ready to put his fist through a wall. Never mind that even the interior walls of the Raza would leave him sporting a sling to match the one his quarry was sporting. ONE was nowhere. He had even jiggered the door to ONE’s quarters to make sure he wasn’t holed up inside. Standing beside ONE’s bed THREE gave in and asked for help. “Raza, where is ONE?” 

The android’s voice came back from his headset. “ONE’s comm unite indicates that he is in his quarters.”

“Try again, know it all,” THREE came back. “I’m standing in his quarters and he isn’t here.”

The android turned her head to analyze ONE’s slumped form. She had noted the activity of the airlock and had personally inspected the activity to offer her presence based on the probability that the airlock activity was ONE not a ship malfunction. He no longer told her to leave. In fact, his biorhythms seemed to improve upon her arrival. She monitored all the sleep cycles of the crew and noted that ONE did not get adequate REM time except for these moments when she was present. She had considered offering ONE her presence in his sleep quarters but when she had mentioned her intention to FIVE, FIVE had looked concerned and cautioned her to be sure it was the right time to make the offer. The android had not yet discerned what variables constituted a right time. She frowned, conflicted between answering the question beneath THREE’s slang and her crew member wellness protocols dictating she protect ONE’s physical need for sleep at that moment. 

THREE threw his hands up, impatient with the Android’s silence. At what point would technology actually become helpful, he thought. Come to think of it, he had trekked the whole ship and didn’t recall seeing the android on the bridge. Did robots take breaks? Was he interrupting some daytime soap binge watching? THREE moved to the computer console in ONE’s room and punched up a location for the android. An airlock? What was the bot doing messing with an airlock while they were in FTL? 

THREE looked through the window into the airlock decompression chamber. “What the hell?” THREE roared, completely floored by the sight of the Android sitting in the pressure chamber of the airlock with ONE sagged against her side unconscious. THREE opened the door; ONE startled awake, immediately groaning in regret at the sharp movement of his shoulder. THREE surged into the space. 

THREE yanked ONE to his feet and took a defensive stance between ONE and the android. ONE tried to twist away from the rough treatment of his injured shoulder but THREE’s fist refused to give. THREE turned on the android, “Have you shorted a logic sensor!”   
The android stood and cocked her head in a simulation of puzzlement. Her sensors reported an intense spike in aggression and fear. “No, I detect no malfunction. Is there something I can assist you with?” She asked.

THREE pulled his gun, stepped back into ONE and pointed it at the Android. “Yeah, start by explaining why you told me ONE was in bed, but instead I find you with playing dolls with him in an air lock. Try making sense of that!”   
The android’s eyes flicked past THREE. “You need to cease. Your actions have reopened ONE’s shoulder wound.” She commented.   
THREE turned and noticed ONE’s muffled grunt of pain at the shift in THREE’s grip. Instantly, THREE broke contact. “TWO said you dislocated it. No one mentioned open wounds,” THREE charged with a taint of suspicion.  
ONE sighed, his shoulder wasn’t something he wanted to revisit. ONE gestured towards the Android, “She showed up because I activated the inner door. It’s probably ship protocol to investigate any airlock activity.” ONE moved to step around THREE towards the inner passage of the Raza. If he was lucky enough maybe he could escape without a full inquisition. He already doubted his value aboard the Raza. Word that he had taken to sleeping in the airlock wasn’t going to help his cause.  
THREE struck with startling speed, shoving ONE back against the wall; pinning him with a forearm across ONE’s chest. THREE reengaged his gun, aiming it at the android to stop her step to intervene. Pushing into ONE’s personal space, THREE growled, “What were you doing playing with the airlock?” 

For a split second, the Raza was replaced with the soft leather interior of a luxury transport. The pain in his chest and shoulder remained, but instead of THREE it was Catherine. Their intimate proximity, the hush before a kiss, she smiled but there wasn’t any light in her eyes. The pressure increased, his lungs made a request for air but he wasn’t the one calling the shots. He could feel her warmth against the bottom of his lip, her breath, not his.   
Asphyxiation made the light shift, the scene changed silhouetting Dr Hemb’s heated gaze. The feel of the Doctor’s five o’clock shadow against the side of ONE’s jaw as he struggled to pull air from around a gag. The masculine timber of Dr Hemb’s amusement reverbing against the sensitive skin of ONE’s ear. ONE knew what death felt like. He choked a denial and threw everything he had into lashing out.

ONE set THREE back with a crack across the jaw and a boot to his breast bone. The Android stepped forward and ONE leapt backwards, stumbling over the lip of the doorway he collided with the far wall. With a war cry, ONE twisted and slammed his knuckles into a metal service panel until it bled and buckled. Breathing heavily, ONE stilled; his forehead resting against one of the Raza’s support struts. The android moved forward again and ONE’s hand swept up, pulling his gun on the way. ONE trembled, but his arm held the gun deadly still. A drop of blood quietly dropped from his grip. “Why are you here?” ONE whispered, “Why aren’t you with TWO?” ONE’s eyes dropped to the floor in thought.

THREE stepped out of the airlock and made sure the door cycled closed behind he and the Android before moving to contain the situation. The Android seemed to understand his strategy and shifted in the opposite direction. “Why are you in an airlock instead of sitting down to eat with the crew?” THREE asked with uncharacteristic caution.

ONE moved back from the wall, keeping his gun leveled as a buffer. “You have a bias against tech,” ONE huffed with disbelief. “She chose you, twice… maybe more.” ONE’s lidded eyes shifted to THREE. “You’re an idiot. Fix this before you lose her,” ONE said holstering the gun and turning down the hall. 

“Woah! Hey!” THREE stalled jumping to get ahead of ONE. “That’s it? I’m supposed to take dating advice from a guy spending his recreational time in an airlock trying to space himself?” THREE asked keeping his hands up in a non-threatening gesture. He inched in to stop ONE’s advance, relieved to see the android moving into a flanking position as ONE turned to blink at him with confusion. “What about the little competition we’ve got going? You’re just going to rollover?” THREE clarified.

ONE shrugged but kept his eyes level, “Maybe she chose the better man.” 

THREE frowned at the choice of words. “So, what? This is just you sulking?”

“Stop it!” ONE exploded. “You’re always pushing!” With a curse he stepped back from THREE and deflected the accusation by sweeping his knuckles across his eyes unaware of the red streaks the motion left. “I don’t know what to believe. I don’t know what’s real. I close my eyes and it’s like… Dante’s 9 rings.”

THREE shook his head lost with the reference. “Look… You go out on a job like this and someone’s going to end up dead.” THREE saw the flash of fear, noted how it robbed ONE of color, he must have hit the mark. Something happened out on that ice while THREE was out of action. “You’re a talker, so you gotta start talking to someone about what’s going on inside that head.” THREE advised. THREE surprised himself with the realization that he was willing to be who ONE opened up to. Sure, they had their disagreements, but sometimes they connected in a way THREE didn’t quite achieve with the others. 

ONE squared up to THREE and met his eyes with a desperate intensity. “Did you… Did Catherine hire you to murder…” ONE struggled to find words to convey the gorey grindhouse imagery playing on loop in his head. How do you ask someone if they were the participated in helping your wife end her unwanted pregnancy? How did you ask if someone had a hand in cutting the unborn from a womb to send a message? How could he talk when words failed? 

THREE reached out and gripped ONE’s good shoulder. He ignored the flinch and held firm. “We get that you’ve been through something. No one is asking for rainbows and sunshine. But we need you there, whatever shape you’re in, that’s what it is to be family. Sometimes families tend to talk crap about the other side. I don’t know what they said, but I don’t shoot people unless their asking for it.” THREE shifted slightly uncomfortable with the heart to heart moment. “Come on, TWO cooked, suffering is better when you’re not alone, right?” THREE gave a little tug, relieved when ONE followed the direction. They moved down the corridor together, headed for the mess hall. The Android smiled and followed. THREE was right, family needed to be together, even the members that were synthetic and thus had no reason to go to the mess hall other than to be there.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This feels like it wraps up the story. So let me know what ya thought.


End file.
